"Well, Hilda, I've written enough for to-day. I have to go on duty, the colonel has just summoned a meeting of officers to read out to us again the most stringent regulations concerning Courts of Honour. Isn't it ridiculous nonsense! As if one didn't know how to behave as an honourable gentleman indeed! If a man doesn't feel these things he doesn't learn them by yawning more or less loudly while these endless regulations are read out to him.
"Send me, please, the four thousand marks; uncle will give it you at once if you tell him it will be paid back directly after your marriage. Let me impress this upon you: have your marriage contract drawn up at a lawyer's, and mind you have a good income settled upon you. In your place, I wouldn't accept less than forty thousand marks a year. The fellow must expect to pay something for marrying into such a distinguished family. However, I must tell you that, in spite of the French champagne which father was only able to get on credit on the strength of your approaching marriage, things at home are in a frightful condition. Father wrote and asked me to send him a few thousand, or at least a few hundred marks if I won at cards. Ah, if the old gentleman had an idea of the terrible hole I am in! Now, dear Hilda, arrange your affairs satisfactorily. With love and kisses.—Your affectionate brother,
"Fritz."
Every drop of blood vanished from Hildegarde's face as she read the letter. She stood motionless, and a feeling of repugnance came over her, as it often did when she had news from home. She tore the letter into a thousand pieces and stamped them under foot.
Then she sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands. "They ought to be ashamed of writing to me in this way," she moaned. "Just imagine their regarding me as a chattel that is to be sold to the highest bidder. What is it that Fritz writes?—'He must expect to pay something if he marries into our distinguished family.' Distinguished family!" and she laughed bitterly. "Bankrupts, gamblers, men with whom nobody would have anything to do if it were not that they owned noble names and wore uniforms. A man has only to wear an officer's uniform and belong to an aristocratic family, and, of course, he is a man of honour."
She roused herself from her meditations when her aunt came in to inquire whether she was dressed, and when she saw Hildegarde's face she clasped her hands in horror.
"But, Hildegarde, whatever is the matter? What has happened?"
Hildegarde shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. "What has happened! You can see by these pieces on the floor. Fritz has been gambling again, he needs four thousand marks. I am to ask you for it." Then suddenly she burst forth with passionate indignation: "Aunt, how could you tell them at home that my engagement with Lieutenant Winkler was about to take place? You ought not to have done such a thing; the consequences have been serious. On the strength of their prospective son-in-law and brother-in-law, both my father and Fritz have contracted all kinds of debts. And I do not really know if Lieutenant Winkler even loves me. I scarcely think so, but if he should get to love me and want to marry me, then I know what I shall do: I shall open his eyes to everything. When he asks for my hand I shall tell him how I have been sent for years to Berlin in order to get a rich husband; how my relatives reckon on his money, and what they think of his plebeian birth. I shall tell him everything, for even if I do not love Lieutenant Winkler, I honour him and respect him too highly to deceive him. He shall know and understand clearly into what an honourable family he is about to marry. I shall tell him everything!"
"You will do no such thing." Frau von Warnow had listened to Hildegarde, speechless with amazement, and it was quite a long time before she regained her composure. "You will do no such thing," she repeated with anger. "You have not only your duty to your own people, but to us also. I will not remind you of what we have already done for you. It is true we are rich, but, in spite of this, naturally we should not have given you, your parents and your brother, hundreds and hundreds of pounds if we had not taken it for granted that you would have repaid us in some way or other. When you say that you will tell Lieutenant Winkler everything before marriage, you say something that is simply ridiculous. The four thousand marks won't matter in the least to him with all his money, and you may be sure he's clever enough to know that a beautiful girl only marries a middle-class lieutenant for his money. If you tell him everything beforehand you warn him, to a certain extent, against marrying you, and then he can't very well help drawing back. And then, what will you do?"
Hildegarde shrugged her beautiful shoulders. "What shall I do? I don't mind in the least. I shouldn't starve. As I told you before, I should get a situation of some kind or other."