Kläre gave the girl a hearty kiss, and said: "You are as pretty as a picture, little one. Quite lovely. Well, and what did the stern father say to all this?"
Marie was quite flushed with pride. "At first he said, 'By Jove!'" she answered. "Then I made him give me a kiss; and next he got quite anxious and wanted to know whether I hadn't been running into debt. I had to swear to him that the whole turn-out didn't cost me more than what he had given me for it."
"And is that the truth, dear child?"
"Well, I had just to add four marks from my pocket-money."
Kläre shook her head smilingly. "Dear, dear! So young and already so depraved! Hypocrisy and perjury! Well, at least it is worth it."
Frau von Gropphusen now made quite a business of helping Marie von Falkenhein about her clothes. Hannah's slender hands were quicker and cleverer than those of the deftest maid, and she knew how to transform the young girl's plain boarding-school frocks into something quite pretty and original.
She did all this with a soft motherly tenderness, hardly in accordance with her own youthfulness. Marie Falkenhien's school-girl stiffness disappeared gradually, and a dainty young woman blossomed out.
"By Jove!" said Güntz to Frau Kläre. "How Mariechen is coming on! She is getting a deuced pretty little girl!"
And Reimers looked at the young girl with eyes which no longer contained the brotherly indifference of past months.
Shortly before the departure of the troops for the practice-camp the regimental adjutant, Senior-lieutenant Kauerhof, had a fall from his horse, and injured one of the tendons of his knee-joint. This would probably keep him away from duty for about six weeks, so Lieutenant Reimers was appointed to take his work. Being the eldest lieutenant in the regiment his promotion to senior-lieutenant was expected any day.