"Otto! you forget yourself!" Johann Leopold interrupted him, sternly. "You choose the time ill for accusing others. You need help. You shall have it; but upon condition——"
"That I promise never to touch a card again!" Otto exclaimed, with an ugly laugh. "Of course I'll promise. But if the desire attacks me——" He broke off with a shrug.
"When the desire attacks you there is no help save in your own firm will," said Johann Leopold. "I know this, and in this respect I leave you entirely to yourself. All that I can do is to relieve you from embarrassing circumstances."
"Embarrassing?" Otto repeated. "Only embarrassing? Rather say desperate! What am I but the farmer of a small property? I, who detest farming; I, who am made for a soldier!"
"But you voluntarily left the army," said Johann Leopold. Otto's eyes fell beneath his cousin's look.
"No, not voluntarily; by the old man's orders," he replied. "Odd that he never wrote you how it was. It was all the fault of my unlucky passion for play. I had made a promise, and forgotten it, and he decreed that I should no longer wear the king's uniform."
"He will reverse that decree," said Johann Leopold. "I will represent to him——"
"You needn't trouble yourself. So long as he lives I must eat dirt. But if I had the means——"
"For what?" Johann Leopold asked, when Otto paused.
"To enter the Russian Guards," Otto replied. "A great deal is to be done there by patronage. Waldemar could be of service to me——"