"That is because you know nothing about it," said Adela, with a wise shake of her curls. "I will tell you how my brother Hugo conducts himself. Let me speak just this once," she went on, turning to Frau von Rosen; "it is such a relief to speak it all out, and you know I would not mention it anywhere else. Well, when he comes home he first goes directly to the stables, and in fact it is there only that he ever shows a pleasant face. Then he comes into the house, drops into an arm-chair in the drawing-room, and looks about him with a sneering expression which he knows I detest. If I chance to be alone with him, he says, languidly, 'Frightful taste, the furniture of this room! I really cannot understand why my father does not have this old-fashioned stuff replaced by something decent. If he will commission me to attend to it I will see that you have something here really _chic_.' If my patience gives way and I remind him that the furniture was all of our mother's selection, and that papa would never think of altering a single article, he sneers again,--that same odious sneer,--and either whistles some popular air or remarks, 'Of course not. I, however, never would live in such a beastly hole. In fact, Rollin is an infernally tiresome old nest, only fit for breeding horses, or some such colt as you are!' meaning me. Is that not enough to vex one? And papa is so kind and good to him, granting all he asks, and getting nothing from him in return but disappointment and grief." "But, Adela, your father has great satisfaction in him nevertheless," Frau von Rosen observed. "He is an excellent officer, and very popular with his comrades, as I know from Bernhard." But Adela would hear nothing of that. "Ah, that indeed!" she exclaimed, irritably. "You would hear very little more of his popularity if papa did not give him so much money. Walter says he gambles, and that his comrades win his money." "Walter Eichhof says that?" Thea exclaimed. "And how came you, Adela, to discuss such matters with Walter?" Adela blushed slightly, and replied that she had happened to speak of Hugo to Walter because he had been in Berlin and had heard about many things there. Frau von Rosen looked grave, and shook her head, but Adela, now fairly roused, went on unheeding: "I know myself that papa has often to send him a great deal of money, and is always in a very bad humour for days afterwards, and very cross to the inspector and the steward and to me. And it is all Hugo's fault. He alone is to blame----" "Hush, hush, Adela!" said Frau von Rosen. "If you do not choose to suppress your own sentiments with regard to your brother, it is at least your bounden duty to have nothing whatever to say of circumstances with which you have nothing to do, and which concern your father and brother only. Of such matters I must distinctly forbid you to speak here."