"Herr von Wallmoden!"
"Not so loud, if you please," interrupted the Ambassador. "We might be overheard, and it would surely not be desirable to you that the name I just now uttered should be heard by outsiders."
"It is true that at present I carry my mother's name, to which I surely have a right. If I laid aside the other, it happened out of consideration----"
"For your father," finished Wallmoden, with heavy emphasis.
Hartmut started. This was an allusion which he could not bear yet.
"Yes," he replied, curtly. "I confess that it would be painful to me if I were forced to break this consideration."
"And why? Your rôle here would be played out, anyway."
Rojanow stepped close to the Ambassador with a passionate gesture.
"You are the friend of my father, Herr von Wallmoden, and I have called you uncle in my boyhood; but you forget that I am no longer the boy whom you could lecture and master at that time. The grown man looks at it as an insult."
"I intend neither to offend you nor to renew old connections, which neither of us consider as existing," said Wallmoden, coldly. "If I desired this conversation, it was to declare to you that it will not be possible to me, in my official position, to see you in intercourse with the Court, and be silent when it would be my duty to enlighten the Duke."