'Most assuredly,' said Brenner to Arwed, as soon as they had left the
palace behind them, 'you have a very peculiar talent for making your
way at court. You ought, at the least, to be made a master of
ceremonies. I have taken you with me to an audience once, but I would
never do it again.'
'Had you left me behind you, as I earnestly begged of you, colonel,'
answered Arwed, 'you would have spared me the pain of witnessing the
thoroughly disgusting scene, and yourself the mortification of my
awkwardness.'
'You do not understand the matter,' blustered Brenner. 'It was proper
for me to present my companion; and in doing so I was actuated by the
best intentions towards you. If our own hearts bled at the sad news we
brought, yet I knew well that it would be right welcome here; and the
face that brings good news may expect to win the good will of those in
authority. And every thing was going on so well, and the warm sun of
favor was beginning to shine clear and bright upon you, when satan must
come all at once into your back so that you could not bend it, into
your arm that you could not stretch it out, and into your lips that you
could not kiss,--and now the opportunity has passed for time and
eternity!'
'Let it be past!' cried Arwed, 'I cannot outwardly honor what I
inwardly despise.'
'You will soon leave the royal service then;' grumbled the colonel:
'for in that service cases of the kind may often occur.'
'Have you any further need of me, colonel?' asked Arwed, his glance
impatiently turning towards the palace of Goertz.
'For to-night, no,' answered Brenner. 'But come to my quarters early in
the morning. We will then make arrangements for our return, I will not
trouble you to go with me to the governor's. After the captious remarks
which he let fall he might have various dangerous questions to ask
you--and if your hitherto passive awkwardness should become active, I
might in the end have cause to repent my willingness to take you with
me.'
'If I, however,' asked Arwed, seized with a sudden presentiment,
'should have occasion to set out upon a journey to-night, would you
give me a furlough upon my word of honor to appear at the camp before
Frederickshall in eight days?'
'Come not to me with such a strange request!' cried the colonel with
vehemence. 'I have no authority nor power to grant you such a
furlough.'
'But when the object is to save a good man?' asked Arwed earnestly,
seizing the colonel's hand and looking anxiously in his face with his
beautiful clear eyes.
The colonel gave him a piercing glance from under his gray bushy
eye-brows. But the severity of his eye soon melted into a more kindly
expression. 'My old friend Duecker is well disposed towards you,' said
he: 'and there is no falsehood in your face. I see that you are one who
will keep your word. Go upon your own terms whither you will.'
'May God reward you!' cried Arwed, hastening away.