He chose an unpropitious day for a tentative declaration of his intentions.  It was very cold.  White mufflers protected his outstanding ears, a gray woolen scarf was wound about his long neck and almost covered his tight little mouth.  He wore mitts and wristlets, and his nose was crimson.  Gisela, in a new set of furs, sent her for Christmas by Mariette, and a smart gown of wine-colored cloth, looked radiant.  Her dark eyes shone with joy in the cold electric air of that high plateau, her cheeks were red, her warm full-lipped mouth was parted over her even white teeth.  They walked from the University down the great Leopoldstrasse, one of the finest streets in Europe, toward the Cafe Luitpold, where he had invited her to drink coffee.

There was little conversation during that brisk walk.  He was frozen, and she was not thinking of him at all.  At the cafe he selected an alcove as far from the noisy groups of students as possible.  All the “trees” were hung with colored caps and the atmosphere was dense with smoke.

Zottmyer, who, after all, was young, soon thawed out in the warm room, and when he had cheered his interior with a large cup of hot coffee and lit a cigarette, he brought up the subject of matrimony.  He had no intention of proposing in these surroundings, but it was time to pave the way—­or set the pattern of the tiling; he cultivated the divergent phrase.

“It is time I married,” he announced, and, not to appear too serious, he smiled into her glowing face.  She looked happy enough to encourage a man far less fatuous than Georg Zottmyer.

“Yes?” Gisela’s eyes had wandered to the nearest group of students and she was wondering if they might not have made handsome men had they permitted their duel wounds to heal instead of excoriating them with salt and pepper.  “Most German men marry young.”

“I am not conventional.  I should not dream of marrying unless I found a young lady who possessed everything that I demand in a wife.”

“Ah?  What then do you demand?”

“Everything.”

“That is a large order.  What do you mean, exactly.”

“I mean, of course, that I should not marry a woman who did not have in the first place beauty, that I might be proud of her in public, besides refreshing myself with the sight of her in private.  She must have beauty of figure as well as of face, as I detest our dumpy type of German women.  And she must have style, and dress well.  It would mortify me to death, particularly after I had made my position, to go about with one of those wives that seem to fall to the lot of most intellectuals.  Soft-waisted, bulging women,” he added spitefully, “how I hate them!”

“Your taste is admirable.  Our women are much too careless, particularly after marriage.  And the second requirement?”

“Oh, a small fortune, at least.  I could not afford to marry, otherwise, and although I shall no doubt make a large income in due course, I must begin well.  I prefer a house, as it gives an artist a more serious and dignified position.”