"
"No more tea, thank you, Frau Fischelowitz," said Schmidt, but she took
his glass with a quiet smile and shredded a fresh piece of lemon into it
and filled it up again, quite heedless of his protest. Schmidt resigned
himself, and thanked her civilly.
"Of course," she said, presently, as she busied herself with the
arrangements of the samovar, "of course it is nothing so very serious, is
it? I daresay the Count has told you that he would not work any more for
us, and you are anxious to arrange the matter? In that case, you need have
no fear. I am always ready to forgive and forget, as they say, though I am
only a weak woman."
"That is very kind of you," observed Schmidt, with a glitter in his eyes
which Akulina did not observe.
"I guessed the truth, did I not?"
"Not exactly. The trouble is rather more serious than that. The fact is,
as we were at supper, a man at another table saw the Gigerl in our hands
and swore that it had been stolen from him some months ago."
"And what happened then?" asked Akulina with sudden interest.
"I suppose you may as well know," said Schmidt, regretfully. "There was a
row, and the man made a great deal of trouble and at last the police were
called in, and I came to get Herr Fischelowitz himself to come and prove
that the Gigerl was his. You see why I am in such a hurry."
"Do you think they have arrested the Count?"
"I imagine that every one concerned would be taken to the police-station."
"And then?"
"And then, unless the affair is cleared up, they will be kept there all
night.
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