"That is remarkable, to be sure, it does not look like the old man! He must either be perfectly infatuated with you, or he has some object to subserve. He is capable of anything. As for the rest, your candor was very out of place in this case, for now, of course, your movements at Odensburg will no longer be free. You have managed very awkwardly, young man!"
"Was I to deny the truth?" asked Egbert with knitted brow.
"Why not, if it could serve a good purpose?"
"Then look out for some one else who is more practiced in lying! I regard it as cowardice, to deny one's convictions and one's party, and acted accordingly."
"That is to say, you have again followed your own head, and acted in utter defiance of orders. Odensburg is your field of labor, you are to get the fellows there to affiliate with you, instead of which, here you are quietly constructing water-works at Radefeld, at the same time that you are being coddled in the so-called Manor-house, and yet you know perfectly why we sent you here!"
"And you know that I resisted from the very beginning, that finally only a direct order from headquarters forced me into line."
"Alas! I suppose you confided that to your chief, too?" The question came in the sharpest of tones.
"No," answered Runeck coldly; "he attributed my return to an entirely false motive, and I left him in his error. Never again would I have gone voluntarily to Odensburg, and I cannot stay here either, my position is an untenable one, as I foresaw."
"And nevertheless you will be obliged to remain," said Landsfeld dryly. "This Odensburg is like an impregnable fortress, that defies all attacks. The old man has made his people tame, with his schools and infirmaries and funds for the poor, they dread to lose the good berths they have, and, above all, they have an incurable fear of their tyrant--the cowards! However often we applied the lever, nothing was to be done, he has made them thoroughly suspicious of our agitators. You are a child of a workman, have grown up in their midst, and even now have intimate relations with their chief. They will listen to you, and follow you too, if it comes to that."
"And to what end?" asked Runeck moodily. "I have often enough explained to you that a strike at Odensburg would be perfectly futile. Dernburg is not a man to be coerced: I know him--he would rather close his works. He is a man after this sort, that he would rather take any loss upon himself than to yield, and he is rich enough to resist to the uttermost."