"I have no doubt. You looked glum enough when I appeared. But that makes it worse. It proves that you know you are doing a silly thing, and are ashamed of it. Seriously, though, whatever has induced you to part with Bruno? You told me only the other day that there wasn't another horse like it in Berlin."
"That was perfectly true. But that is no reason why I should keep such a paragon to myself."
Seleneck took another hasty inspection of his friend's face.
"Does it hurt to smile like that when you are losing your most treasured possession?" he asked quizzically.
"You exaggerate things," Wolff returned, with a movement of impatience. "If I find that I have no need of a horse in Berlin, that it is both a trouble and an expense, there is no need to immediately adopt a tone of high tragedy. Besides, Graf Stolwitz is giving a very fair price, from his point of view. I cannot expect him to pay for my personal attachment to his purchase."
"If I did not know you as I do, I should think you had been gambling," Seleneck said, in his turn slightly ruffled. "At any rate, I am not going to stand by and see the deed. Auf wiedersehen."
Wolff's ears, quick to catch and interpret every shade of tone, had heard the irritation in his friend's voice, and he turned quickly, as though shaking off a weight of preoccupation.
"Forgive me, lieber alter Kerl," he said. "I'm a bear this afternoon, and ready to snap off anybody's head. Don't take any notice of me. And don't worry about Bruno. Everything has its reason."
"You are working too hard," Seleneck declared. "That's what's the matter with you. I shall speak to your wife."
"Please do nothing of the sort," Wolff said firmly. "In the first place, it isn't true; and in the second, it would only worry her. Every man has his own battles to fight, and every man must fight them alone. Such is the law of things, and I am no exception."