"Something's in the wind. They're going to be married. To be sure she is
cleverer than he, but then he is twenty-five years younger, and that
counts for something."

One evening in January, Judith met Blasi as he was coming round the corner
of Gertrude's house, where he was always at work till it was time to go
for Veronica.

"What makes you go about laughing all the time, and looking as if you had
been winning a game?" asked Judith.

"That's exactly what I was going to ask you," retorted Blasi, "What have
you got to laugh about?"

"Answer me, and I'll answer you, my lad."

"All right; it's nothing to be ashamed of. She'll have me."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Judith "Who? Which one?"

Blasi did not turn round, but pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at
the house he had just left. "That one," he said.

Judith shouted with laughter.

"Will she have you all three?" she said; "first Dietrich, then Jost, and
now you."

"I don't see the joke," said Blasi crossly. "Dietrich has run away; she
avoids Jost as if he were a nettle, and who else is there? Who is there