"Pretty good frien's, you an' the li'l Teufel, yes?
Guess we'll have to watch you, huh, Anna? We'll watch
'em, won't we?"
He began to climb the stairs laboriously, with Frau
Nirlanger's light figure flitting just ahead of him. At
the bend in the stairway she turned and looked down on us
a moment, her eyes very bright and big. She pressed her
fingers to her lips and wafted a little kiss toward us
with a gesture indescribably graceful and pathetic.
She viewed her husband's laborious progress, not
daring to offer help. Then the turn in the stair hid her
from sight.
In the dim quiet of the little hallway Von Gerhard
held out his hands--those deft, manual hands--those
steady, sure, surgeonly hands--hands to cling to, to
steady oneself by, and because I needed them most just
then, and because I longed with my whole soul to place
both my weary hands in those strong capable ones and to
bring those dear, cool, sane fingers up to my burning
cheeks, I put one foot on the first stair and held out
two chilly fingertips. "Good-night, Herr Doktor," I
said, "and thank you, not only for myself, but for her.
I have felt what she feels to-night. It is not a
pleasant thing to be ashamed of one's husband.
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