"You ought to be able to guess it. It is not difficult. Naturally I mean an affair, an affair of my own." "An affair!" laughed Botho. "Why, I am at your service, Rexin. But, to be frank with you, I hardly know just what leads you to confide in me. I am not a remarkable fount of wisdom in any direction, least of all in this. And then, too, we have quite different authorities. One of these you know very well. And moreover he is a special friend of yours and of your cousin's." "Balafre?" "Yes." Rexin felt that there was something like reluctance or refusal in these words and stopped talking with some air of finality. But that was more than Botho had meant, and so he led on a little further. "Affairs. Pardon me, Rexin, there are so many affairs." "Certainly. But however many there are, they are all different." Botho shrugged his shoulders and smiled. But Rexin, evidently not meaning to be stopped the second time through his own sensitiveness, only repeated in an indifferent tone: "Yes, however many there are, yet they are different. And I wonder, Rienaecker, that you should be the one to shrug your shoulders. I really thought ..." "Well, then, out with it." "So I will." And after a while Rexin went on: "I have been through the University, and have served with the Uhlans, and before that (you know I joined them rather late) I was at Bonn and Goettingen and I need no instruction and advice when the case is a usual one. But when I examine myself carefully, I find that in my case the affair is not usual but exceptional." "Everyone thinks that." "To speak plainly, I feel myself engaged, and more than that, I love Henrietta, or to show you my feeling more plainly, I love my dark Yetta. Yes, this importunate pet name with its suggestion of the canteen suits me best, because I want to avoid all solemn airs in this connection. I feel sufficiently in earnest and just because I am in earnest, I feel no need of anything like pompous or artificial forms of speech. They only weaken the expression." Botho nodded in agreement and refrained from every sign of derision or superiority, such as he had shown at first.