Lothar rummaged among his belongings and tossed everything into confusion. He looked for his gloves, which he had just thrust into his pocket, and locked up his cap, to begin to search for it immediately afterwards. Evidently his hands were as hurriedly and uncertainly employed as were his thoughts. Hohenstein watched him narrowly, while a smile of scornful superiority played about the corners of his mouth. "Do you remember my prophecies with regard to the Wronsky?" he asked. "I tell you they have been most brilliantly fulfilled. She is making a _furor_, and Bernhard has enviers enough to satisfy the vainest of men. A handsomer couple cannot be imagined." Lothar tore one of his bills into minute fragments; Hohenstein leaned back in his chair and contemplated him with the same sensation with which a heartless boy watches the flutterings of the butterfly that he has just impaled on a pin. "You know that woman was never to my taste," said Lothar, "and I hope that Bernhard's taste also is sufficiently good to see that Thea is a hundred times the more beautiful of the two. There cannot be a moment's doubt upon that score." Hohenstein observed that taste was a matter which it was useless to discuss. As meanwhile the time had arrived for the Casino, they left the room together, Lothar's irritated mood giving Hohenstein further opportunity for the play of his sarcastic humour. They found a larger party than usual assembled at the Casino, for some comrades from the next garrison and several officers from the border posts were present. After dinner there was a bowl of punch, around which they sat until dark; and then, since they had begun the evening together, they resolved to finish it in the same way. A second bowl was brewed, tables were arranged for play, and the entire company took their places at these. Hohenstein was still present, since his train did not leave until after midnight. Whist and ombre not being to his taste, however, he proposed a game of faro. "Just a quiet little game," he said, "to make matters rather more lively." Werner, who had just finished a rubber at whist, came up to Lothar, and said, "Will you not take my place at that table? I see you are not yet engaged, and I want to go home early to-night." "No," said Lothar, who had taken more punch than was good for him, and whose irritable mood had gradually given place to one of noisy merriment. "No, I couldn't think of it. If you are tired of whist, come and play faro with us." "You know I never play faro," Werner replied, and then added, in a low tone, "and neither ought you to play it. You never have any luck, my dear Eichhof, and----" "Nevertheless, I shall do as I please," Lothar rejoined haughtily. Werner bit his lips to suppress an angry retort. He saw that Lothar was hardly responsible for his words or manner, and he therefore only looked him steadily in the face, and said, "I have _warned_ you, my dear Eichhof."