No, she looked at himself, unmistakably and personally, with a smile about the closed lips and the narrow, Pribislav eyes, as though to say: “Well, it is time: are you going?” And the eyes said “thou,” for that is the language of the eyes, even when the tongue uses a more formal address. This episode shook and bewildered Hans Castorp to the depths of his being. He hardly trusted his senses, and at first gazed enraptured in Frau Chauchat’s face, then, lifting his eyes, stared into vacancy over the top of her head. Was it possible she knew he was to be examined at two o’clock? It looked like it; but that was as impossible as that she should be aware of the thought that had visited his mind in the last minute; namely, that he might as well send word to the Hofrat, through Joachim, that his cold was better, and he considered an examination superfluous. This idea had presented itself to him in an advantageous light, but now withered away under that searching smile, transmuted into a hideous sense of futility. The second after, Joachim had laid his rolled-up serviette beside his plate, signalled to his cousin by raising his eyebrows, and with a bow to the company risen from the table.