"You adopt a lofty tone," said Waltenberg, with a sneer. "'Tis a pity your betrothed is not here; in her presence there might not be so much conscious rectitude in your manner."
"I am no longer betrothed," Wolfgang coldly declared.
Waltenberg retreated a step in extreme amazement.
"I simply inform you of a fact to show you that the cause for the imputation with which you would insult me exists no longer, for _I_ was the one to withdraw from the engagement."
"When? For what reason?" The questions were put hurriedly.
"On these points I owe you no explanation."
"I am not so sure of that, for here, as it seems to me, you are reckoning upon my magnanimity. You are mistaken. I never will release Erna; and she herself, as I know, will never ask her release at my hands. She does not make a promise to-day to break it to-morrow, and she is far too proud to give herself to a man who preferred wealth to her love."
"Pray cease your attempts to use the old weapon: it has lost its point," Elmhorst said, sternly. "Born and bred in the very lap of luxury as you were, ignorant of all self-denial, what can you know of the struggles and efforts of one longing to rise, consumed by ambition to win recognition for himself, to attain a great goal? I yielded to temptation, yes; but I have delivered my soul now, and can bid defiance to your boasted virtue. You too would have succumbed if life had denied you fortune and happiness,--you first of all,--and it may be you would not have fought your way free as I have, for, by heaven! the struggle is no easy one."
There was such convincing truth in his words that Ernst was silent. He to whom luxury was a necessity of existence could hardly have withstood temptation; but because he could not help the conviction that this was so, did he all the more detest the man who had come off conqueror in the fiercest of all battles,--the conflict with self.
"And now go, and hold your betrothed to her promise," Wolfgang went on, still more bitterly. "She will not break it, nor will she forgive me for what has been. There you are right. I have paid for my wrong-doing with my happiness. Force Erna to bestow upon you her hand; her love you cannot gain, for that belongs to me,--to me alone!"