surely if
he was frantically in love with her . . .

January 1 5th. The girls in our class are frantically jealous. We did
not say in so many words that we, alone among them all, had been invited
to see her, but Hella had brought one of the sweets she had given us and
in the interval she said: This must be eaten reverently, and she cut it
in two to give me half. The Ehrenfelds thought it must have been given
by some acquaintance made at the skating rink, and Trude said: "Doubly
sweetened, by chocolate and love." "Yes," said I, "but not in the sense
you imagine." And since she said: "Oh, of course, I know all about that,
but I don't want to be indiscreet," Hella said: "I may as well tell you
that Frau Doktor M., or I should say the _married_ Frau Prof. Theyer,
gave us this sweet and a great many more on the day she had invited
us to go and see her." Then they were all utterly kerblunxed and
said: "Great Scott, what luck, but you always were Frau Doktor M.'s
favourites, especially Lainer. But Lainer always courted Frau Doktor M."

January 17th. The whole school knows about our being invited to see her,
the glorious one! I've just been reading it over, and I see that I have
left a frightful lot out, especially about her father. When we were
leaving, just outside the house door we burst out crying because as
I opened the door I had said, For the last time! Just then an old
gentleman came up and was about to go in, and when he saw that we were
crying, though we were standing quite in the shadow, he came up to us
and asked what was the matter. Then Hella said: "We have lost out best
friend." Then the old gentleman looked at us for a tremendously long
time and said: "I say, do you happen to be the two ardent admirers of
Frau Doktor Mallburg? She is my daughter, you know. And then he said:
But you really can't go through the streets bathed in tears like that.
Come upstairs again with me and my daughter will console you." So we
really did go upstairs again, and she was perfectly unique. Her father
opened the door and called out: Lieserl, your admirers simply can't part
from you, and I found them being washed out to sea in a river of tears.
Then she came out wearing a _rose-coloured dressing-gown!!!_ exquisite.
And she led us into the room and said: "Girls, you must not look at me
in this old rag, which is only fit to throw away." I should have liked
to say: "Give it to _me_ then." But of course I could not. And when we
made ou