During the past winter Reimers had grown much more at home in the regiment, feeling as a wanderer returned. He felt himself freer and more light-hearted, and his comrades seemed more congenial. Never had a winter flown by so swiftly; and yet he counted the days till the 1st.
He had made a special resolve to spend his evenings over his books, and had plunged with renewed zeal into his studies for the examination of the Staff College, which had been interrupted by his illness. And then the feeling of loneliness had suddenly returned. But now all would be well, now that Güntz was coming back--Güntz, from whom no difference of rank or age had ever divided him; to whom he could speak straight from the heart, and on whose sympathy he could at all times rely.
Güntz's return was scarcely alluded to by his brother officers. After all there was nothing extraordinary about it; every year some one took up or left a post of the kind he had been filling.
The ladies of the regiment made somewhat more of a stir; for one question, which had previously been theoretically discussed, now became suddenly of burning importance.
Güntz had married in Berlin, and his bride was a governess. This much only was known: that she was not even particularly pretty. He had, of course, obtained the requisite official sanction, so that there could not be anything actually against her family; but concerning the reception into their midst of this young person, who had formerly filled a "menial position," the ladies of the regiment felt somewhat troubled.
Frau Lischke laid the case before her husband, and begged him to ask instructions of the colonel.
"H'm," answered the major, "I'll do it; but I don't care for the job. Falkenhein can be pretty sharp-tongued upon occasion."
"Sharp-tongued?" retorted his wife. "My dearest, surely you are more than a match for him there! And there's another matter. While you are about it, you might just mention that stuck-up Reimers. This entire winter he has kept away, quite without excuse, from all society. Just tell the colonel that I don't think that proper in a young officer."
Lischke was not as a rule shy or in awe of his superior officer, but his wife's commission gave him an ill-defined uneasiness, so that he boggled over his errand.
The colonel let him have his say out. Then he began, in his somewhat nervous, quick way: