Hildegarde knew only too well that he was right. She remembered how most of the friends of her youth had had a lieutenant lover. How often had she not spoken to them about this, and reproached them, but all had given the same answer: "Why shouldn't I have a lover? the others have, and what's the use of being young and beautiful? Do you think that our blood remains calm when a man pays court to us the whole evening, presses us closely to him when dancing, and casts longing glances at us? Are we to wait till we have a husband? We may wait a long time, perhaps for ever, and what then? Do you want us to die without having had experience of life? How ridiculous!"
They told one another with truly cynical frankness how they managed to deceive their parents and prevent any consequence of their intrigues. Perhaps Hildegarde was naturally too cold and too lacking in passion to understand her friends. Above all, she could not understand the officers who, more than all others, ought to be regarded as honourable men, and who yet made no scruples of entering into a liaison with the wife or daughter of the house where they enjoyed the pleasantest social relations.
Hildegarde and George sat for a long time occupied with their own thoughts. George misinterpreted Hildegarde's silence. He thought she was perhaps vexed with his remarks, and so he said:
"I hope you are not angry with me for having spoken so freely and frankly in your presence; but we have both of us been brought up among quite different circumstances and educated in quite different views."
Hildegarde felt that she blushed. Grown up among different circumstances indeed! It was entirely her own merit that she did not resemble her companions. Perhaps, however, it was partly due to her father and brother who had constantly written to her: "Don't throw yourself away, and don't enter into a liaison if you are not sure that it will lead to marriage. You will get nothing out of it, and then you lower your value and utterly destroy the hopes we set upon you."
How often had she not wondered whether her brother would have been quite inconsolable if she had written to him: "I have not found a husband but a friend. If you will pardon this, I will pay your debts."
She did not doubt that he would accept the money in order to remain an officer and play the fêted and envied rôle in Society of a soldier.
"Are you angry with me?" George asked, as Hildegarde still remained silent.
She roused herself from her thoughts. "Why should I be?" And in order to turn the conversation, which was painful to her, to another subject, she again inquired about his sister. And then George told her all about his sister—how charming and beautiful she was, how kindly and good, how they had grown up together as excellent friends, and how often they had fought each other's battles when they were children. He told his stories gaily, with sparkling eyes, and Hildegarde listened with interest.