"True, we are in the provinces; my Berlin stomach can hardly accommodate itself to these mid-day meals. But to-day, if you will have me, I'll dine with you, and drive from here to the station. I must go back to Berlin by the night-train."

"I shall be glad to introduce you as my guest to our mess," Lothar said, more courteously than cordially. "Let us wait here, then, for the half-hour."

"Agreed. And now tell me all about the people hereabouts, and in especial how your sister-in-law fares at Eichhof. You go there a good deal, eh?" This question was accompanied by an odd sidelong glance.

Lothar gave various particulars with regard to his comrades and the county gentry.

"Of course I am frequently at Eichhof," he concluded, without further mention of Thea.

"Hm! And what are you doing at Eichhof?" Hohenstein asked.

"I go to see my brother's wife," Lothar answered, with an air of cold reserve.

"And to make love to her?" Hohenstein said, with a laugh.

The colour mounted to Lothar's forehead; his blue eyes gleamed almost black for a moment.

"I beg you to refrain from expressions which I regard as insulting," he said, angrily.

"Oh! ah!" said the other. "I had no idea that you would fire up so at an innocent jest. For the matter of that, your brother Bernhard's views on such matters are not so provincial; he is making furious love to a certain blonde lady from these parts."

"Bah! such stuff as is called 'making love' in Berlin society," Lothar said, depreciatingly.

Hohenstein looked at him in his half-sneering, half-malicious way. "Ah, you fancy you understand it better here in the country. Well, well, in spite of that, I can a.s.sure you that Bernhard understands it too, and that Frau Julutta Wronsky is an admirable teacher."

"You would not suggest that he is actually making love to that woman?"

Lothar said, with a shrug, and a struggle to preserve an appearance of indifference.

"I suggest nothing; I only mention what I have seen and heard."

"And that is?"

"That is, that friend Bernhard is daily seen riding with Frau von Wronsky in the Thiergarten; that he is her inseparable cavalier at every ball and party; and that, last though not least, he very nearly fought a duel upon her account,--would have fought it undoubtedly had not his opponent preferred to make his escape----"

"Nonsense, Hugo! Bernhard is much too sensible."

"Ha! ha! Why, what a country b.u.mpkin you are become, Lothar! Well, it is really of no consequence whether you believe it or not. The duel I know all about from a perfectly trustworthy source. The occupant of the next room to that belonging to the gentleman in question, who was no other, in fact, than the lady's first husband, is a business friend of my father-in-law's, and knows Bernhard quite well. He could not help hearing a part of the conversation in the next room, for Bernhard must have roared like a lion."

Lothar rummaged among his belongings and tossed everything into confusion. He looked for his gloves, which he had just thrust into his pocket, and locked up his cap, to begin to search for it immediately afterwards. Evidently his hands were as hurriedly and uncertainly employed as were his thoughts. Hohenstein watched him narrowly, while a smile of scornful superiority played about the corners of his mouth.

"Do you remember my prophecies with regard to the Wronsky?" he asked.

"I tell you they have been most brilliantly fulfilled. She is making a _furor_, and Bernhard has enviers enough to satisfy the vainest of men.

A handsomer couple cannot be imagined."

Lothar tore one of his bills into minute fragments; Hohenstein leaned back in his chair and contemplated him with the same sensation with which a heartless boy watches the flutterings of the b.u.t.terfly that he has just impaled on a pin.

"You know that woman was never to my taste," said Lothar, "and I hope that Bernhard's taste also is sufficiently good to see that Thea is a hundred times the more beautiful of the two. There cannot be a moment's doubt upon that score."

Hohenstein observed that taste was a matter which it was useless to discuss. As meanwhile the time had arrived for the Casino, they left the room together, Lothar's irritated mood giving Hohenstein further opportunity for the play of his sarcastic humour.

They found a larger party than usual a.s.sembled at the Casino, for some comrades from the next garrison and several officers from the border posts were present. After dinner there was a bowl of punch, around which they sat until dark; and then, since they had begun the evening together, they resolved to finish it in the same way. A second bowl was brewed, tables were arranged for play, and the entire company took their places at these.

Hohenstein was still present, since his train did not leave until after midnight. Whist and ombre not being to his taste, however, he proposed a game of faro. "Just a quiet little game," he said, "to make matters rather more lively."

Werner, who had just finished a rubber at whist, came up to Lothar, and said, "Will you not take my place at that table? I see you are not yet engaged, and I want to go home early to-night."

"No," said Lothar, who had taken more punch than was good for him, and whose irritable mood had gradually given place to one of noisy merriment. "No, I couldn't think of it. If you are tired of whist, come and play faro with us."

"You know I never play faro," Werner replied, and then added, in a low tone, "and neither ought you to play it. You never have any luck, my dear Eichhof, and----"

"Nevertheless, I shall do as I please," Lothar rejoined haughtily.

Werner bit his lips to suppress an angry retort. He saw that Lothar was hardly responsible for his words or manner, and he therefore only looked him steadily in the face, and said, "I have _warned_ you, my dear Eichhof."

He then left the window-recess, whither he had withdrawn Lothar, and rejoined his whist-party, but without losing sight of his friend.

Lothar, however, seemed to have a run of luck, and won repeatedly.

At last the game of whist was over, and Werner, who was weary, tried once more to induce Lothar to leave with him. But he soon saw that he must be given up to his fate, and accordingly left the Casino without him.

"I knew I should have no influence over him," he thought; "and this fresh proof of it that I have had to-night makes my departure from this place easier. Easier?" He smiled sadly. "Was there any choice left me?

I owed it to myself, and---- It is by a fortunate dispensation of Providence that I am enabled to go so soon."

He walked slowly along the moonlit street; his footsteps echoed firmly and regularly through the silence of the night, and straight and clear before his mind lay the path that duty required him to tread.

CHAPTER XVIII.

AN EVENTFUL DAY.

The next day was Sunday.

Werner stood at the church door, looking down the road from Eichhof, along which Thea's carriage was wont to come at this hour.

To-day it did not appear. The tones of the organ, heard through the open door, died away at last, and Werner entered.

There were none of his comrades there except a young lieutenant, who had been absent from the garrison the day before, and who could, of course, know nothing of the events of the previous evening. Werner hesitated whether or not to look up Lothar after church, but, seeing the curtains before his windows still closed, he decided not to disturb him. As he left the church and walked out into the clear winter sunshine, his mood was very grave, almost solemn.

"I will ride to Eichhof and take leave of Countess Thea," he thought.

"I can do so calmly now, without betraying myself; and the sooner it is over the better." A quarter of an hour later he was riding along the broad Eichhof road.

Thea, sitting in the bow-window, saw him coming. Her cheeks did not flush, her heart beat no faster, as she recognized him. In her pure unconsciousness of self she had not a shadow of a suspicion of this man's sentiments towards her. Her first thought was, "How strange that he should know that Alma is coming here again at noon!" And then she took up the letter which she had just received and read before recognizing Werner riding along the road. Was there really nothing more in it than the few hasty words she had just read? was this all the answer from Bernhard to the two long letters, filled with every detail that could interest him, that she had written to her husband? Of course he must be very busy, his thoughts entirely occupied with the proceedings of the Reichstag, and his time with his social duties. But she had so longed for some heartsome words from him; she missed him so terribly, and she would so gladly have had some little share in his present life, even although she were so far away from him. She would so much have liked to know whom he saw most, and what chiefly occupied him. She had asked him a hundred questions, but for all he had but a brief indifferent answer. She had often pressed Bernhard's letters to her lips, but to-day she could not,--something cold and strange seemed breathing upon her from these few lines: she was chilled. Yes, she had, she knew, perceived the same thing in all of Bernhard's letters lately, but what it was she could not tell, she could not explain.

For a moment she had forgotten the approaching guest, and her sad eyes, half veiled in tears, saw only the leafless branches outside her window, now glittering with snow. Not until her glance fell upon the road did she remember Werner, and she blushed, for she feared that if he found her sad, and with a letter from her husband in her hand, he might suspect the cause of her melancholy mood. Therefore she hurriedly thrust the letter into her work-table. When Lieutenant von Werner entered, she arose and calmly and kindly offered him her hand.

"I am come to take my leave of you," he said, and there was a slight tremor in the voice usually so firm and clear. "I am ordered to the military school at S----; and, as I shall be excessively busy during the next few days, I thought I would employ my Sunday leisure in paying a farewell visit to Eichhof."