"Egon!" Wild, stormy entreaty was in the tone. "You know I have never made a request of you--this is the first and last one. But now I beg--entreat you for this friendly service. It is the relief from the doom which has hung over me since that hour. The reconciliation with my father--the reconciliation with myself--you must help me!"
"I cannot," repeated the Prince. "The rejection to which you have been subjected may hurt you deeply--I believe it--but it is only just. You have broken with your fatherland--with your duties--and that cannot be mended so easily without anything further, when one has become of a different opinion. You fled from the service of our standard--you, the son of an officer! Now the army is closed to you, and you must bear it."
"And you tell me that so calmly--so coldly!" cried Hartmut, beside himself. "Do you not see that it is a question of life or death to me? I saw my father again that day at Rodeck, when he hastened to the deathbed of Wallmoden. He crushed me with his contempt--with the awful words he threw into my face. It was that which drove me away from Germany, which chased me ceaselessly from place to place. His words went with me and made life a hell to me. I have greeted the war cry as a deliverance. I want to fight for the fatherland which I once cast from me, and now the door which is open to every one is closed to me alone. Egon, you turn from me! Oh--there is only one way left for me!"
With a sudden, passionate motion he turned to the table, where the Prince's pistols were lying; but the Prince sprang at him and tore him back.
"Perhaps I shall be so. All of you torture me beyond endurance."
Egon, too, had turned pale, and his voice trembled as he said: "Before it goes so far--I will try to find an opening in a regiment for you."
"However, I cannot promise you anything, for the Duke has to be put altogether aside now. Besides, he leaves to-morrow for the battlefield. Should he learn later on that you serve in his corps, we shall then be in the midst of the storm of war, and one does not ask 'How' and 'Why' in the face of a completed fact. But it may take days before the decision arrives. Will you be my guest?"
Formerly the Prince would have accepted that as only natural and would have been exasperated if his friend had refused; now he made the inquiry, and Hartmut felt what lay in the cold question.