"Aunt Magda—that is not true—that——"
He stopped short, pale with agitation, his lips close compressed on the hot words of self-vindication.
For a minute Frau von Arnim waited as though giving him time to speak, and then she went on quietly:
"Wolff, we Arnims are not fond of charity. We prefer to eat out our hearts in silence rather than be objects of the world's pity. And Hildegarde is like the rest of us. She will not ask for your sympathy nor your care nor your devotion. She will ask you for your whole heart. Can you give her that?"
He made a gesture as though about to give a hasty answer, but her eyes stopped him.
"I—love Hildegarde," he stammered. "We have been friends all our lives."
"Friends, Wolff! I said 'your whole heart.'"
And then he saw that she knew; and suddenly the tall, broad-shouldered man dropped down, sword-clattering, at her side and buried his face in his hands. The smile in Frau von Arnim's eyes deepened. So he had done in the earlier days when youthful scrapes and disappointments had sent the usually proud, reserved boy to the one unfailing source of understanding and consolation. Very gently she rested her hand upon his shoulder.
"Shall you never grow up, Wolff?" she said with tender mockery. "Shall you always be a big schoolboy, with the one difference that you have grown conceited and believe that you can hide behind a full-dress uniform and a gruff military voice—even from my eyes?"
He lifted his flushed, troubled face to hers.