"I admire your patience, Egon. You allow your servants very far-reaching liberty."
"Stadinger is an exception," replied Egon. "He allows himself everything; but he was not so much in the wrong when he sent Lena away. I believe I should have done the same in his place."
"But it is not the first time that this old castle-keeper has taken it upon himself to call you and me to order. If I were his master he would have his dismissal in the next hour."
"If I tried that it would turn out badly for me," laughed the Prince. "Such old family heirlooms, who have served for three generations, and have carried the children in their arms, will be treated with respect. I cannot gain anything there with orders and prohibitions. Peter Stadinger does what he will, and occasionally lectures me just as he sees fit."
"If you suffer it--such a thing is incomprehensible to me."
"Yes, it is a thing you do not comprehend, Hartmut," said Egon more seriously. "You know only the slavish submission of the servants in your country and the Orient. They kneel and bow at every opportunity, yet steal and betray their masters whenever they can and know how. Stadinger is of an enviable simplicity. My 'Highness' does not intimidate him in the least. He often tells me the hardest things to my face; but I could put hundreds of thousands in his hands--he would not defraud me of one iota of it. If Rodeck were in flames and I in the midst of it, the old man, with all his sixty years, would stand by me without a second thought. All this is different with us in Germany."
"Yes; with you in Germany," repeated Hartmut slowly, and his glance was lost dreamily in the dusk of the forest.
"Are you still so prejudiced against it?" asked Egon. "It cost me persuasion and prayers enough to get you to accompany me here--you fought so against entering German territory."
"I wish I had not entered it," said Rojanow, gloomily. "You know----"
"That all sorts of bitter remembrances have their origin here for you--yes, you have told me that; but you must have been a boy then. Have you not yet overcome the grudge against it? You have the most obstinate reticence, anyway, upon this point. I have not yet heard what it really was that----"