"Because I am now convinced that something very serious occurred then, the sting of which is still sharp after twenty years. It caused the only difference I have ever had with Herr Nordheim, who visits his anger upon you, who are entirely innocent of all offence."
"Possibly; but that would be all the more reason why he should not obtain for me a lucrative position."
"It is just what he would do, were there no other means of removing you from his vicinity, and I fear that this is the true state of the case. He even wished to put a stop to your professional visits to his daughter. I did not tell you of it, because I thought it might, with justice, offend you, and he apparently changed his mind; but I am quite sure that I see his hand in this offer to you, from an entirely unexpected quarter, of a position that will keep you confined to a spot quite as distant from here as from the capital."
"Why, that would be a positive plot," Reinsfeld interposed, incredulously. "Do you really suspect the president of it?"
"Yes," said Elmhorst, coldly. "But, however the case may stand, so advantageous a position is not likely to come in your way soon again: so accept it by all means."
"Even if it be offered to me from such motives?"
"They are only supposititious; and even were they actual, no one in Neuenfeld knows anything of the circumstances; there they merely accept the recommendation of an influential man. Perhaps he perceives the injustice of visiting an old grudge upon you and wishes to indemnify you, since your presence recalls disagreeable memories."
Wolfgang knew well that this could not be so; his talk with the president had convinced him that he could be actuated by no sentiments of justice or magnanimity, but the young engineer wished to make the way easy for his friend, with whose sensitive delicacy he was familiar. Under all circumstances it was a piece of good fortune for Reinsfeld to be removed from his present obscure position, no matter whose was the influence to which he owed the change.
"We will discuss it this evening when you come to me," Elmhorst continued, taking his hat from the table. "Now I must go; my conveyance is waiting outside; I am driving to the lower railway."
"Wolf," said Benno, with a searching, anxious glance at his friend's face, "did you sleep at all last night?"