The Lady From Vienna

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"Poor, plain, vivacious, fascinating little Frau Nirlanger!" I said. "I wonder just how much of pain and heartache that little musical laugh of hers conceals?"

"Ja, that is so," mused Frau Knapf. Her eyes look like eyes that have wept much, not? And so you will be so kind and go maybe to select the so beautiful clothes?"

"Clothes?" I repeated, remembering the original errand. "But dear lady! How, does one select clothes for a woman of forty who would not weary her husband? That is a task for a French modiste, a wizard, and a fairy godmother all rolled into one."

"But you will do it, yes?" urged Frau Knapf.

"I'll do it," I agreed, a bit ruefully, "if only to see the face of the oogly husband when his bride is properly corseted and shod."

Whereupon Frau Knapf, in a panic, remembered the unset Kuchen dough and rushed away, with her hand on her lips and her eyes big with secrecy. And I sat staring at the last typewritten page stuck in my typewriter and I found that the little letters on the white page were swimming in a dim purple haze.