"Dernburg is not going to bend, that you all know, and to break him you have not the power. But he has it, and will use it unsparingly now that he has been goaded so far. He can hold out if his works lie idle for weeks and months--but not you. The strike is perfectly senseless, and the leaders of our party do not wish it--never have wished it. Now the decision against it has been definitely made."
"Ah, indeed! I know you did your very best to persuade them to come to this decision. Now, didn't you?" asked Landsfeld with a piercing glance. "You are one of the leaders yourself now! The youngest and most masterful of all. You seem to have got the whip-hand of the others already."
Runeck made an unequivocal sign of impatience.
"Have you only personal attacks against me, where the question concerns a party measure? I bring you the positive direction, not to proceed to extremities--conform to it."
"I am sorry, it is too late; the direction should have come earlier," answered Landsfeld coldly. "The offer has been made, and in case of its non-acceptance the strike is announced. The people cannot retract--they will see it so in Berlin also."
"Ah, ah, you show your true colors at last," cried Egbert in embittered tone. "You, who have always had the word discipline in your mouth, have followed your own head entirely!"
"Acted upon my own responsibility, yes! Those narrow-minded cowards, those Odensburgers, must at last be thoroughly aroused from their dream of security. What trouble we have had in getting them to elect you, under what high pressure did we have to work, and all was left in doubt, up to the last minute! Now the dull mass is at last in motion; now it is of moment to urge them forward!"
"And whither? To certain defeat! They have followed you to the polls, and even now they go with you blindly--the intoxication of victory has mounted to their heads! You have not preached to them in vain that they were almighty. But the intoxication will pass away. Just let the people come to their senses for once, and perceive what they lose when they turn their backs upon Odensburg, and what sorrows they thereby entail upon their wives and children--I tell you, you will not be able to hold them together for eight days; they will run back to Dernburg as fast as their legs can carry them. But he will be a different man from what he has been heretofore; he will not and cannot pardon the insult that they have inflicted upon him."
The young engineer had long since lost the cool calmness with which he had opened the interview, and had worked himself up into continually greater excitement. Landsfeld quietly kept his seat and looked at him fixedly: an evil smile played about his lips, as he replied:
"You seem to find this quite in order. On what side do you really stand, may I ask?"