“Chorge! Vhere haf you been, you naught-ee boy-ee? Vhy do you not come in to see me dese last days? I vas eggsbecting you.”
“Why—I--I—” George began, “I really meant to, Karl. But I knew you would be here to see me off, and I just didn’t get around to dropping in at your office again. I’ve had a great deal to do, you know.”
“And I also!” cried Lewald, his voice rising in droll emphasis on the last word. “I alzo!” he repeated. “But me—I alvays haf time for mein friends,” he said accusingly, still beating away on George’s arm to show that his pretended hurt had not really gone very deep.
“Karl,” George now said, “you remember Frau von Kohler, don’t you?”
“Aber natürlich!” he cried with the boisterous gallantry that always marked his manner with women. “Honourable lady,” he said in German, “how are you? I shall not be likely to forget the pleasure you gave me by coming to one of my parties. But I have not seen you since that evening, and I have seen less and less of old Chorge since then.” Relapsing into English at this point, he turned to George again and shook his finger at him, saying: “You naught-ee boy-ee, you!”
This playful gallantry had no effect on Else. Her face did not relax any of its sternness. She just looked at Lewald with her level gaze and made no effort to conceal the scorn she felt for him. Lewald, however, appeared not to notice, for once more he turned to her and addressed her in his exuberant German:
“Honourable lady, I can understand the reason why the Chorge has deserted me. He has found more exciting adventures than anything the poor old Lewald had to offer him.” Here he turned back to George again and, with his small eyes twinkling mischievously, he wagged his finger beneath George’s nose and crooned slyly, absurdly: “Naught-ee boy-ee! Naught-ee boy-ee!”—as if to say: “Aha, you rascal, you! I’ve caught you now!”
This whole monologue had been delivered almost without a pause in Lewald’s characteristic manner—a manner that had been famous throughout Europe for thirty years. His waggishness with George was almost childishly naive and playful, while his speech to Else was bluff, high-spirited, hearty, and good-humoured. Through it all he gave the impression of a man who was engagingly open and sincere, and one who was full of jolly good will towards mankind. It was the manner George had seen him use many times—when he was meeting some new, author, when he was welcoming someone to his office, when he was talking over the telephone, or inviting friends to a party.
But now again, George was able to observe the profound difference between the manner and the man. The bluff and hearty openness was just a mask which Lewald used against the world with all the deceptive grace and subtlety of a great matador preparing to give the finishing stroke to a charging bull. Behind that mask was concealed the true image of the man’s soul, which was sly, dexterous, crafty, and cunning. George noticed again how really small and shrewd were the features. The big blond head and the broad shoulders and the great, pink, vinous jowls gave an effect of massive size and grandeur, but that general effect was not borne out by the smaller details. The mouth was amazingly tiny and carnal; it was full of an almost obscene humour, and it had a kind of mousing slyness, as if its fat little chops were fairly watering for lewd tidbits. The nose was also small and pointed, and there was a sniffing shrewdness about it. The eyes were little, blue, and twinkled with crafty merriment. One felt that they saw everything—that they were not only secretly and agreeably aware of the whole human comedy, but were also slyly amused at the bluff and ingenuous part that their owner was playing.
“But come, now!” Lewald cried suddenly, throwing back his shoulders and seeming to collect himself to earnestness with a jerk. “I bring somet’ing to you from mein hosband…Was?” He looked round at all three of them with an expression of innocent, questioning bewilderment as George grinned.
It was a familiar error of his broken English. He always called his wife his “hosband”, and frequently told George that some day he, too, would get a “good hosband”. But he used the word with an expression of such droll innocence, his little blue eyes twinkling in his pink face with a look of cherubic guilelessness, that George was sure he knew better and was making the error deliberately for its comic effect. Now, as George laughed, Lewald turned to Else, then to Heilig, with a puzzled air, and in a lowered voice said rapidly: