"Enlighten the Duke! About what?"
"About several things which are not known here and which have probably remained unknown to Prince Adelsberg. Please do not fly into a passion, Herr Rojanow. I would do this only in an extreme case, for I have to spare a friend. I know how a certain incident hurt him ten years ago, which is now forgotten and buried in our country, and, if all this should come up again and be brought into publicity, Colonel Falkenried would die of it."
Hartmut blanched. The defiant reply did not cross his lips. "He would die of it." The awful word, the truth of which he felt only too well, forced aside for the moment even the insult of the remark.
"I owe my father alone an account of that occasion," he replied in a painfully suppressed voice; "only him and nobody else."
"He will hardly ask for it. His son is dead to him; but let that rest. I speak especially now of later years; of your stay at Rome and Paris, where you lived with your mother in lavish style, although the estates in Roumania had had to be sacrificed at a forced sale."
"You seem to be all-knowing, Your Excellency!" hissed Rojanow in great anger. "We had no idea that we were under such conscientious surveillance. We lived upon the balance of our fortune which had been rescued from the wreck."
"Nothing was rescued; the money was entirely lost--to the last penny."
"That is not true," interrupted Hartmut, stormily.
"It is true. Am I really better informed about it than you?" The voice of the Ambassador sounded cuttingly sharp. "It is possible that Frau Rojanow did not want her son informed of the source from which she derived her means, and left him in error about it intentionally. I know the circumstances. If they have remained unknown to you--so much the better for you."
"Take care not to insult my mother," the young man burst forth; "or I shall forget that your hair is gray, and demand satisfaction."