Listening to the bitter sarcasm of this speech, Runeck's complexion changed rapidly, the color coming and going, while his voice had not its wonted firmness, when he replied:
"I have feared that you would take such a view of the matter, and this makes yet more painful the position into which I have been forced by the action of my party. I resisted to the last moment, but at last they----"
"Forced you, did they?" interrupted Dernburg with a bitter laugh, "of course you are nothing but a victim to your convictions. I foresaw that you would screen yourself thus. Give yourself no trouble, I understand."
"I speak truth, I think, you know that," said Egbert, solemnly.
Dernburg got up and stood close in front of him.
"Why did you come back to Odensburg, if you knew that the difference between us was an irreconcilable one? You did not need the position that I offered you. The whole world stood open to you. Yet why do I ask? The thing was to prepare for the contest with me; to undermine the ground upon which I stand; to betray me first on my own soil, and then strike----"
"No, I did not do that!" impetuously declared Runeck. "When I came here, nobody dreamed of the possibility of my election, and I least of all. Landsfeld was alone in our eye. This plan did not loom up until last month, and culminated only within the last few days, despite my opposition. I durst not speak sooner, because it was a party-secret."
"Really! Well, the calculation is very cleverly made. Neither Landsfeld nor any other person would have had the least prospect of success. Where the matter in hand was to unseat me the plan would have been wrecked at the very outset. You are the son of a workman, have grown up among my people, gone forth from among their midst, and, in short, they are all proud of you. If you make it clear to them that I am, at bottom, a tyrant, who has been oppressing them and consuming all their substance all these years, if you promise them a return of the golden age--it takes hold upon and leads the people astray--you they will believe, perhaps; doubtless you are a distinguished orator. If the man, who has been treated almost like my own son, puts himself at their head, to lead them into battle against me, then their cause must be the right one, then they will swear by it."
These were almost the identical words which the young engineer had heard months ago from the mouth of Landsfeld, and his eyes fell before the piercing looks of Dernburg, who now drew himself up to his full height, as he continued:
"But we are not at that point yet. It still remains to be seen if my workmen have forgotten that I have labored with them and cared for them these thirty years, if a bond that has been forging for a whole generation is so easily broken. Try it. If any one can succeed, it will be you. You have been trained in my school and mayhap have learned how to strike down the old master."