“Well, she is keeping a sharp eye on him just now,” said Captain König, good-humoredly, “for he wants to get his promotion as major, or, rather, it is her ambition to become Frau Major.”
“Why, there can be no idea of that,” interjected Borgert, with a great show of righteous indignation. “If this totally incapable idiot becomes major I ought to be made at least a general. Though it is queer that the colonel is evidently moving heaven and earth in his behalf.”
“Good reason why,” retorted Leimann, calmly.
“How so?”
“Don’t you know the story? And yet it is in everybody’s mouth.”
“Then tell us, please, because we know not a word of it, and I scent something fiendishly interesting!” And Borgert rubbed his hands in anticipation.
“Why, last year the colonel had, with his usual want of tact, insulted a civilian—a gentleman, you know. The latter sent him a challenge. Our good colonel began to feel queer, for while he is constantly doing heroic things with his mouth, he is by no means fond of risking his skin. So after some talk with her, this Stark woman went to see the gentleman in question as peacemaker. She told him that the colonel was really innocent in the whole matter, and that she herself had been the cause of the trouble, having spread a false report under an erroneous impression. She managed to tell her yarn with so much plausibility as entirely to deceive and bamboozle the other party, who thereupon withdrew his challenge with expressions of his profound regret. So, you see, she saved the colonel’s life, for the civilian is known as a dead shot. Since then she has the colonel completely in her power, and no matter what she tells him to do, he executes her orders like a docile poodle dog,—a fact which we all see illustrated every day.”
“Well, that explains the whole mystery, of course,” delightedly shouted Borgert. “Don’t you know any more such stories? For it is really high time to call a halt. He has manners like a ploughboy’s, and she like a washerwoman’s. I’ll collect a few more tales of the sort. It is simply shameful that one must submit to the dictation of this woman.”
“There are rumors that she had peculiar relations with a well-known nobleman in her younger days; but I know nothing positive, mind you.”