“So that’s it,” Hans Castorp said. “Will she say it to me, when I get to know her, do you think? That will be queer⁠—funny and weird at the same time, I mean.” His eyes looked as they had yesterday, they felt hot and heavy, as if tired with weeping, and yet brilliant too, with the gleam that had been kindled in them yesterday at the sound of that strange, new cough on the part of the gentleman rider. He had the feeling that he had been out of touch with yesterday since waking, and had only now picked up the threads again where he laid them down. He told his cousin he was ready, sprinkling a few drops of lavender-water on his handkerchief as he spoke and dabbing his face with it, on the brow and under the eyes. “If you like, we can go to breakfast, tous les deux ,” he recklessly joked. Joachim looked with mildness at him, then smiled his enigmatic smile of mingled melancholy and mockery⁠—or so it seemed, for he did not express himself otherwise.