“But, Regine, don’t fly into such a passion,” interrupted her host angrily.  “You speak as though the poor soul had lost her character just because she went on the stage.”

“So she has, so she has!” Regine answered excitedly.  “Who ever enters that Sodom and Gomorrah goes down to the bottom at once and can never rise again.”

“That’s flattering to the Court theatre company, at least,” said Schoenau dryly.  “But we go to see them just the same.”

“As spectators!  That’s quite a different thing, though, for my part, I’m opposed to encouraging such people at all.  Will goes to the theatre very little, and never without me.  But while I, in the performance of my duty as a mother, have guarded him from any intercourse whatever with such people, you permit his future wife to come within their poisonous influence.  It’s enough to make the heavens cry out!”

She had raised her voice almost to a shriek at the last, partly from excitement, and partly to be heard by her brother-in-law, for the musical production was noisy now, and sent forth loud, discordant sounds through the open glass door.  Toni had good strong wrists, and her touch on the piano reminded one of the stroke of an axe on hard wood.  Her three listeners had strong nerves, but low speech was certainly an impossibility.

“Let me explain the matter to you,” said the forester appeasingly.  “I have told you already that this was an exceptional case.”

“Marietta Volkmar is the grandchild of our good old doctor at Waldhofen.  His son died while still in the flower of youth.  The young widow followed her husband the very next year, and the poor little orphan came to her grandfather.  That was ten years ago, just after I had been assigned to Fuerstenstein.  Doctor Volkmar became our family physician, and his grandchild the playfellow of my children.  As the school in Waldhofen was a miserable affair, I begged the doctor to permit his little one to come here and share the childrens’ instruction.  Then while Toni was at boarding-school for two years, Marietta was in the city pursuing her musical education, and, as a matter of course, their daily intercourse ceased.  Marietta, however, has always visited us regularly during her vacations, when she came home to her grandfather, and I do not see why I should forbid her doing so as long as she remains respectable and honest.”

Frau von Eschenhagen had listened to this reasonable explanation without unbending in the least.  She now said spitefully: 

“Respectable and honest in a theatre!  Every one knows well enough what goes on in such iniquitous places; but you seem to take it as lightly as does Dr. Volkmar, who for that matter looks honest and venerable enough with his open face and long white hair.  How he can send a soul entrusted to his care, his own flesh and blood at that, on to certain destruction, is beyond my comprehension.”