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Going into the town on an errand she met the one-year volunteer. They walked part of the way together. Lisbeth had forgotten her embarrassment, and chattered away gaily. Suddenly she remembered her husband's incomprehensible words, and she began, smilingly; "Do you know, Herr Trautvetter, what my husband has just been saying to me, that I was to be really nice to you. Have I not been nice then?"
"What did he mean by that?" Trautvetter asked sharply. "Well," she laughed, "I ought to have taken back some more money to-day. But I never mean to do that again. And then he said that if I were only really nice to you, you would give me lots of money." She started, so violently had the man struck his sword upon the ground, and he looked at her quite red and angry.
The whole scene had been unspeakably revolting to him; he was seized with a grim horror on his own account too. Half unconsciously the sight of the big imposing-looking man clamouring and petitioning on his knees made Trautvetter suddenly realise how near he himself stood to a similar degradation. The next morning he gave the sergeant-major back his notes-of-hand. Heppner coloured.
Henke now wanted to show himself a gallant lover. He intended to present the countess with a bracelet. "Give me the money!" he cried to Lisbeth when she entered. "I have none," she replied. "Trautvetter won't give me any more." Henke tugged at his beard. This was a fatal upset to his calculations. What would the countess say if he broke his promise?
She would at any rate make good the wrong she had done to Trautvetter in her foolish adoration for her husband, and would not conceal the truth from the one-year volunteer.
It even seemed as though Trautvetter had some honourable feeling towards the young baron, for he sternly refused ever to let him join in the gambling with which the drinking-bouts soon came to be enlivened. The one-year volunteer had his reasons for this. His luck remained faithful to him with almost puzzling persistency.
She found plenty to do; for the young men liked to have their things brought home by a lovely little person like the trumpeter's wife, in her neat fresh attire. A special friendship soon established itself between her and Trautvetter. She looked upon the plump volunteer as a good-natured person, who did not, at any rate now, show any of the evil characteristics imputed to him by her husband.
He already owed Trautvetter more than a thousand marks; and the one-year volunteer now became less willing to lend, and caused the sergeant-major endless vexation and trouble. He would suddenly demand to be made corporal, or to be given a couple of weeks' leave: demands which it was quite impossible to grant.
"Just like the low brute!" he cried. "What! What do you mean?" Trautvetter could not contain his wrath. He blurted out: "Don't you know, Frau Lisbeth, what he meant? that you should take me for a lover!" She met his glance with a straight look; then she hung her head, and walked dumbly beside him. "I will go back," she said suddenly.
And Trautvetter wrote him an I.O.U. for one hundred and fifty marks. Heppner took the money, and when Wegstetten came into the orderly-room he found the sergeant-major counting over his cash. This event made a powerful impression on the one-year volunteer. From the moment when Heppner had lain grovelling on the ground before him a thorough change came over Trautvetter.
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