SCHMOCK.

He makes me a present of the money?  It’s a miracle!  I tell you what, Colonel, if I don’t succeed with the money it remains a gift, but if I work my way up with it I return it.  I hope I will work my way up.  COLONEL.  Do just as you like about that.

SCHMOCK.

I like to have it that way, Colonel.—­Meanwhile I thank you, and may some other joy come to make it up to you.  Good day, Sir and Madam.

ADELAIDE.

We must not forget the lunch. [Rings, KORB enters.] Dear Korb! [Talks in a low tone to him.]

SCHMOCK.

O please, do not go to that trouble!

[Exeunt SCHMOCK and KORB.]

COLONEL.

And now, dear lady, explain this whole conversation; it concerns me intimately enough.

ADELAIDE.

Senden spoke tactlessly to outsiders about his relations with you and your household.  This young man had overheard some of it, and also had notes written by Senden in his possession, which contained unsuitable expressions.  I thought it best to get these notes out of his hands.

COLONEL.

I want you to let me have those letters, Adelaide.

ADELAIDE (entreating).

Why, Colonel?

COLONEL.

I won’t get angry, girl.

ADELAIDE.

Nor is it worth while to do so.  But still I beg you won’t look at them.  You know enough now, for you know that he, with his associates, does not merit such great confidence as you have latterly reposed in him.

COLONEL (sadly).

Well, well!  In my old days I have had bad luck with my acquaintances.

ADELAIDE.

If you put Oldendorf and this one (pointing to the letters) in the same class you are quite mistaken.

COLONEL.

I don’t do that, girl.  For Senden I had no such affection, and that’s why it is easier to bear it when he does me an injury.

ADELAIDE (gently).

And because you loved the other one, that was the reason why yesterday you were so—­

COLONEL.

Say it, mentor—­so harsh and violent!

ADELAIDE.

Worse than that, you were unjust.

COLONEL.

I said the same thing to myself last night, as I went to Ida’s room and heard the poor thing cry.  I was a hurt, angry man and was wrong in the form—­but in the matter itself I was, all the same, right.  Let him be member of Parliament; he may be better suited for it than I. It is his being a newspaper writer that separates us.

ADELAIDE.

But he is only doing what you did yourself!

COLONEL.

Don’t remind me of that folly!  Were he as my son-in-law to hold a different opinion from mine regarding current happenings—­that I could doubtless stand.  But if day by day he were to proclaim aloud to the world feelings and sentiments the opposite of mine, and I had to read them, and had to hear my son-in-law reproached and laughed at for them on all sides by old friends and comrades, and I had to swallow it all—­you see that is more than I could bear!