Mr. Hellinger muttered something to himself, and busied himself with his long pipe.
"It looks as if something were brewing again in that quarter," she began anew; "he has altogether been so peculiar lately; come slinking round me without a word to say for himself. It seems to me there is some debt hanging over him again that he can't satisfy."
"Poor fellow," said the old man, and smacked his lips, perhaps to get rid of the unpleasant idea by this means.
"Poor fellow, indeed!" she mocked him; "I suppose you pity him into the bargain; perhaps even you have been helping him on the sly?"
He raised up his white, well-kept hands in protest and defence of himself, but he had not the courage to look her in the face.
"Adalbert," she said, threateningly, "I make it a condition that such a thing does not happen again. Whatever you give him, you take from us and from our other children. And if at least he deserved it! but he that will not hear advice must suffer. If he is ruined, with his obstinacy and stubbornness----"
"Allow me, Henrietta," he interrupted her timidly.
"I allow nothing, Adalbert, my dear," replied she. "'He that will not hearken to advice must suffer!' say I; and if through his abominable ingratitude his poor mother, who is only anxious for his welfare, and who bothers and worries herself whole nights through, thinking----"
With the many-coloured border of her apron she rubbed her eyes as if there were tears there to be wiped away.
"But, Henrietta," he began again.