"This is the first injustice of which I have ever convicted my friend Möllner," said Taun, shaking his head.
Johannes looked at his dismayed associates with quiet amusement, and did not observe that Herbert extended his hand to him to thank him for his assistance.
"God be thanked," he muttered, "that you have given the fool her discharge!" And he swallowed the contents of his glass with evident satisfaction.
"Johannes! Johannes!" Hilsborn began again, "why have you treated the girl and ourselves in this manner?"
"Why?" asked Johannes,--and there was a glow in his face that quite transfigured it,--"because she is far more to me than to any of you."
"You have chosen a very odd method to show that it is so," Hilsborn remonstrated.
"Do you think so, short-sighted man?" asked Möllner gravely.
"What harm can it do you to make the Hartwich happy?" grumbled Hilsborn.
Möllner looked at him with a smile.--"When we take away from a child a knife with which it is playing, we do so, not because we are afraid it will harm us, but itself. True, the child will regard us as an enemy, but we act for its own sake."
"Well, is the Hartwich the child that you feel so bound to protect?"