"It burns quite well enough for what I have to say," replies the captain. "I whipped up my horses, as I said,--I was positively in a hurry to fall at the Ruprecht's feet; but, just at the last moment, so many different things occurred to me! Glockenstein was in sight, but I turned aside, and then drove over to Reitzenberg's to settle with him about the wood."
"Ah! It seems to have been a very protracted business discussion."
"I took supper with Reitzenberg, and played a game of cards afterwards."
"Hm! Since, then, you have perhaps sufficiently explained the reason of your delay, will you permit me to withdraw?" Katrine asks.
"Apparently you do not believe me. And yet you ought to know that falsehood is not to be reckoned among my bad qualities."
"True; but"--Katrine shrugs her shoulders--"no man hesitates to improvise a little when there's a lady in the case. I should like to know, however, why you take so much trouble in the present instance for me, who have so little interest in such things." And, taking the candlestick once more from the chimney-piece, she asks, "Can I go now? Have you finished?"
"No," he exclaims, angrily, "I have not finished, and you will hearken to me. Matters are come to a worse pass than you fancy; our whole existence is at stake. You know how my sister Lina's marriage turned out, and you are in a fair way to plunge me into the same misery into which Franz Meineck was thrust by his wife."
"Your comparison of me to your sister seems to me rather forced," Katrine replies. "I know it is not pleasant to hear one's relatives criticised by another, however we may disapprove of them ourselves, but I must defend myself. Your sister neglected her household and her children, giving herself over to a ridiculous ambition; whilst I----" She hesitates, deterred from proceeding by something in the captain's look:
"Whilst you----" he begins. "I know perfectly well what you would say. Your household is perfectly attended to, you are an ideal mother, and daintily neat. In a word, you would have been for me the ideal wife if you had ever shown me a particle of affection."
"I have always done my duty by you."