"And yet it does not seem so. You let me stand there on those steps like a fool, while you were talking with that doctor."
"You need not have listened. Why did you not go ahead of me?"
"Because it amused me to see how impossible you find it to break away from those to whom you have so long been in bondage. Ha, ha! to hear you inquiring after their health, in that highly sentimental manner. It was too funny!"
"What is it to you?" said Egbert harshly. "That is my own affair."
"Not exactly, my young man. You are the candidate of our party, and, as such, have decidedly and definitely to break off all connection with the enemy's camp. Before all things, you have to care for your popularity now, and you will make yourself disliked, yes, suspected, by such proceedings,--note that!"
Runeck contemptuously shrugged his shoulders. "I thank you for your good advice, but rather think that I ought to be capable of guiding my own actions."
"You speak in a very lofty tone forsooth," mocked Landsfeld. "You already behold yourself as the all-powerful party-leader, as the chief person in the Reichstag. You have, in general, quite a dangerous touch of the master about you. In this you bear a striking resemblance to the old man at Odensburg, no doubt having learned it from him. But that this kind of thing does not go down with us you should know by this time. If you continue to carry on so, my word for it, your election will be impossible."
Egbert suddenly rose to his feet and with furrowed brow planted himself right in front of Landsfeld.
"What is all this for? Better say, straight out, that you envy me the station to which the party has nominated me. You had calculated upon holding it and cannot forgive me for having been preferred before you. And you know best of all that this office was thrust upon me. I would have gladly committed it to you--only too gladly!"
"What I wished or expected is not to be considered here," answered Landsfeld coldly. "There was no prospect of my carrying the election; there is one for you, so I had to vacate the field for you, and this I do without murmuring. I know the discipline and adhere to it--would that others did the same."