Hugo bit his lips; in his anger he had quite forgotten to whom he spoke. His brother remarked his hesitation.
"Do you mean the Erlau's house?" asked he, quickly. "It seems to me you often visit it."
"Sometimes, at least," was Captain Almbach's quick response. "You know I have always enjoyed the privilege of neutrality there; even when the battle was raging most fiercely in my uncle's house, I have asserted this old privilege there, and it is tacitly recognised by both parties."
Reinhold had raised himself entirely, but the eagerness had quite disappeared from his features; in its place was a dark expression of enquiry, as he said--
"Then Cesario has also the entrée of the Erlau's house? Of course you introduced him there."
"Yes, I was so--stupid," said Captain Almbach, speaking angrily, "and I seem to have caused something very charming by it. We had hardly left Mirando when Don Cesario--who cannot resolve to sacrifice his freedom---who rides past the only lady in the neighbourhood without looking at her even--loses no time on the strength of that introduction in making himself agreeable at the Villa Fiorina; and this was done, the Herr Consul tells me, in so pleasant and modest a manner that it was impossible to repulse him; the more so, as our departure from Mirando removed the only cause of their seclusion. Then he was fortunate enough to discover Herr Doctor Conti, who was making his villegiatura somewhere in the vicinity, and bring him to the Herr Consul. The doctor's treatment produced results beyond all expectation, and Don Cesario is almost looked upon in the family as the saviour of life, which he knows how to make use of. Trust one of those women-haters! They are the worst of all; Jonas has just given me a speaking example of it. He has started a wonderful theory of pity, in which he believes firmly as in the Gospel; but all the same, it has caught him hopelessly, and the aristocratic Marchese Tortoni is on the same path."
It could not have escaped any calm observer, that under the Captain's mocking speech, which was usually only dictated by mischief, a bitterness lay concealed which, with all his scoffing, he could not quite control; but Reinhold was far from calm. He had listened as if he would read every word from off his brother's lips, and at the last remark he started up wildly.
"On what path? What do you mean by it?"
Hugo stepped back as if struck, "My God, Reinhold, how can you fly out like that? I only meant--"
"It concerns Ella, does it not?" interrupted Reinhold, with the same violence. "To whom else can these attentions be paid?"