“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” her husband flared up. “I shall certainly throw her out of the house! Or do you suppose I’m going to make our home a convenient shelter for depraved women? Let her see where she will find another refuge. As for me, I respectfully decline the honor of harboring her any longer as our guest; and this note will not go into the fire, but, instead, where it belongs,--before a Council of Honor!” The young officer was in a great state of excitement. With rapid strides he measured the room, burying his hands in his pockets. His dark look betrayed indignation and resolve. “If you will take my advice,” his soft-hearted spouse said, with some trepidation, “you will put that bit of paper into the stove and keep quiet about the whole matter. She is to join her husband in another two days, anyway, and then there would be an end to her intrigues in any case. Do me the favor, my dear Max, and leave your fingers out of that pie, for there will be nothing but disagreeable consequences awaiting you if you don’t. And then, another thing, think of the poor major!” And the little woman had actually tears in her eyes. But that stubborn husband of hers proved inexorable. “I shall do what I said I was going to do, and that’s all there is about it. These are matters you don’t understand. I won’t quietly look on while this person continues her miserable intrigue with that scoundrel, Kolberg,--at least not while she is in my house. She ought to have had enough decency remaining to have left off meeting him while being the guest of honest people. That is beastly; it’s worse than beastly,--hoggish, I may say!” Frau Weil did not insist any longer. She knew her husband, knew his strictness in such matters, and also knew that the more she would plead with him the more fixed his purpose would become; but her forehead became rumpled with unpleasant thoughts, and she sat down before the glowing coal in the grate, in a brown study. Her husband meanwhile continued to pace the carpet, reflecting on what steps he had best decide. At last the maid came into the room once more, and said, with a mien of ill-concealed curiosity: “Madam is served!” “Tell us, Minna, where did you find that letter?” said the officer to her. “I found it lying in the hall under the hat-rack; I presume it must have dropped out of somebody’s pocket.” “Very well; you may go.” Silently the couple sat down to table. Weil’s face was clouded, and his wife scarcely looked up from her plate. She lifted her glance to him, however, with considerable anxiety when the hall door was heard to open, and Frau Kahle’s voice became audible. “She is coming, Max! Now, for pity’s sake, don’t make a scene! Think of the servants who will be sure to listen and to spread everything that’s said.” But Weil did not answer, neither did he look at the door when it now opened and gave admission to the Frau Major. Her face was rosy with excitement, and her eyes were gleaming in humid tenderness.