"At least I will try, father, and it shall not be my fault if I do not succeed."
"Why ever should you not succeed? Don't begin in that spirit. Hold your head high. Look courageously into the future. Whatever a man bestirs himself eagerly to get can be got – and there's no more to be said."
George acquiesced. "Yes, let us drop the subject; the future alone can decide which of us is right. But there is one thing I should very much like to know, and you did not answer that question in your letters – wasn't it my mother's idea to get me transferred from a line regiment to the Guards?"
The manufacturer laughed complacently. "Well, if you really must know you're right, my boy, in your surmise. You know your mother – she's a treasure, but she would not be a woman if the money, title, and position which men sing of did not turn her head a little. We live in good style nowadays, partly on account of your sister Elsa. We entertain a great deal, and sometimes it was not very pleasant for your mother when she was asked where you were, to have to admit that you were stationed in some miserable little place with a second-rate regiment. Of course, no one actually said anything, but your mother read quite clearly in their faces – 'You see there are still some doors that money will not open.' That naturally vexed and annoyed your mother and wounded her vanity; she has only one son you must remember, and in her opinion the best is not good enough for him. She dinned this so constantly in my ears that at last I did what she wanted."
"That is just exactly what I thought," said George. "I can see my mother doing this, how she coaxed you – I know every word that she said. Well, she certainly meant it for my benefit, and now I do hope she is very happy."
The manufacturer burst out laughing. "Happy, my boy? I tell you no words can express the happiness she feels now. She is always dressed nowadays in the best silk dress which was formerly reserved for the grandest occasions."
George could not help laughing, and they went on talking about the mother and sister, who was devotedly loved by her brother, of the home and the factory, until the hour struck, and George remembered that it was high time for him to be going to dinner.
The manufacturer made a wry face. "Can't we dine together? I thought that in honour of this day we might have ordered at a first-class restaurant a dinner which would have aroused the envy of the immortal gods."
"To-day that is quite impossible, father; on the very first day I must under no circumstances be absent from the mess dinner; perhaps to-morrow I may be free."
The old man growled with vexation. "To-morrow is not to-day; however, it can't be helped." And then after a short pause he said: "Can I not dine with you in the mess-room? I thought perhaps I ought to call on your immediate superiors, or, at any rate, upon your colonel."
George was somewhat embarrassed. He was a good son, was proud of his father and greatly loved him, and just because of this he wanted to prevent people seeing anything odd in his manners at dinner; above all he was anxious that his companions should have no occasion to make remarks about anything in his behaviour that displeased them. Besides, he was afraid that his father, whose passionate, quick temper he was only too well aware of, might lose his self-control and make unflattering remarks which could only harm them both. So he said hesitatingly; "I'm afraid that would scarcely do, father; it is an old custom in the army that on the first time an officer dines with his new comrades he is invited by them as a guest, and as such he naturally cannot bring a guest with him."
The old man understood this more easily than George had dared to hope. "Very well, then, I must drink my Rhine wine by myself; we shall see each other again before we go to bed, and then you must tell me everything that happened."
But when George returned about ten o'clock he had nothing much to relate, at least nothing very pleasant. The dinner had been all right; they had, of course, drunk his health, but that was all; the officers' quarters were splendid, and George gave a long account of these until his father at last said "Good-night" to him.
George went up to his room, but he lay awake a long time, and thought over what he had not related to his father. The oldest officer at dinner had bade him welcome briefly, but the words had sounded cold, and George said to himself that he only spoke because he was obliged to, and there was no heartiness in his words. The speech was followed by a cheer, glasses were clinked, and then the affair was over. No one had given him an invitation.
"Why did I not remain where I was? What's going to happen in the future?"
This question kept him awake a long time, and when at last he fell asleep he saw his mother's glad eyes beaming with joy at the distinction which had been given to her son.
CHAPTER III
Among the Aristocracy
The regiment had been back from the manœuvres for five weeks, recruits had been enlisted, and the military and social festivities of the winter season in Berlin had begun. No one had looked forward to the beginning of winter more anxiously than George. Although he had been in the "Golden Butterflies" nearly six months he was still as much a stranger to all his comrades as on the first day, for all his attempts to fraternise with them had been frustrated by their passive resistance. Now that the winter festivities had begun he hoped to get into more friendly relationship with the officers.
To-day, Captain von Warnow, who had an elegant house with beautifully large rooms, was giving a dance, and had invited the whole regiment. Everybody was delighted, for entertainments at the Warnows were quite different from the usual official parties.
The Warnow's niece, Fräulein von Wiedemann, a tall, slender, very beautiful brunette of three-and-twenty, was staying with them, as she did every winter. The young baroness was an acknowledged beauty, and although during the last year or two she had lost some of her charms, she was still considered a very beautiful girl. Her whole air and bearing were distinguished, for she was an aristocrat through and through. The Wiedemanns belonged to a very old family, and she had been strictly brought up in the principles of her class. Her father had been formerly an officer in a Guards regiment, for whom a great military future had been prophesied, but one day he had made a mistake during an inspection of his battalion, and now, as during his military career he had spent all his own limited private means, he lived with his wife and daughter in a small town on a pension of about four thousand marks (£200) a year. His only son was an officer in an important Artillery regiment. Great poverty reigned in the household of the pensioned major: the allowance which his son required to keep up appearances in his regiment swallowed up half his pension, and the other half, in spite of all efforts, was not sufficient to defray the ordinary expenses of living. Consequently the major was up to his ears in debt.
At first he had not troubled himself much about this. Hildegarde, his beautiful daughter, would one day make a great match, and would then pay all his debts. But the years passed, and the splendid match did not come off. Hildegarde would never marry well as long as she remained in a little provincial town; then Frau von Warnow, who was connected with the Wiedemanns, and was very fond of Hildegarde, came forward and said she would find a suitable parti for her. Five years ago Hildegarde had gone to Berlin for her first visit; on all sides she had aroused admiration, their Majesties had noticed her at court festivities, but she was not yet engaged.
Not that suitors were lacking; one after another had endeavoured to win her favour, but each in turn drew back when he heard of her lack of dowry. None of the officers of the Guards – and neither Frau von Warnow nor Hildegarde would have looked at anyone else – was rich enough to marry a girl whose marriage portion consisted of her beauty and a whole family plunged in debt. For it was not only the father's debts that a son-in-law would have to pay, but a brother's, for the latter