"Hm! And what are you doing at Eichhof?" Hohenstein asked.
"I go to see my brother's wife," Lothar answered, with an air of cold reserve.
"And to make love to her?" Hohenstein said, with a laugh.
The colour mounted to Lothar's forehead; his blue eyes gleamed almost black for a moment.
"I beg you to refrain from expressions which I regard as insulting," he said, angrily.
"Oh! ah!" said the other. "I had no idea that you would fire up so at an innocent jest. For the matter of that, your brother Bernhard's views on such matters are not so provincial; he is making furious love to a certain blonde lady from these parts."
"Bah! such stuff as is called 'making love' in Berlin society," Lothar said, depreciatingly.
Hohenstein looked at him in his half-sneering, half-malicious way. "Ah, you fancy you understand it better here in the country. Well, well, in spite of that, I can assure you that Bernhard understands it too, and that Frau Julutta Wronsky is an admirable teacher."
"You would not suggest that he is actually making love to that woman?" Lothar said, with a shrug, and a struggle to preserve an appearance of indifference.
"I suggest nothing; I only mention what I have seen and heard."