to
have blood on my hands for the sake of the happiness taken away from
me. But that social something, let us say, which tyrannizes us, takes
no account of charm, or love, or limitation. I have no choice. I
must."

"I don't know, Innstetten."

Innstetten smiled. "You shall decide yourself, Wuellersdorf. It is now
ten o 'clock. Six hours ago, I will concede, I still had control of
the situation, I could do the one thing or the other, there was still
a way out. Not so now; now I am in a blind alley. You may say, I have
nobody to blame but myself; I ought to have guarded and controlled
myself better, ought to have hid it all in my own heart and fought it
out there. But it came upon me too suddenly, with too much force, and
so I can hardly reproach myself for not having held my nerves in check
more successfully. I went to your room and wrote you a note and
thereby lost the control of events. From that very moment the secret
of my unhappiness and, what is of greater moment, the smirch on my
honor was half revealed to another, and after the first words we
exchanged here it was wholly revealed. Now, inasmuch as there is
another who knows my secret, I can no longer turn back."

"I don't know," repeated Wuellersdorf. "I don't like to resort to the
old worn-out phrase, but still I can do no better than to say:
Innstetten, it will all rest in my bosom as in a grave."

"Yes, Wuellersdorf, that is what they all say. But there is no such
thing as secrecy. Even if you remain true to your word and are secrecy
personified toward others, still _you_ know it and I shall not be
saved from your judgment by the fact that you have just expressed to
me your approval and have even said you fully understood my attitude.
It is unalterably settled that from this moment on I should be an
object of your sympathy, which in itself is not very agreeable, and
every word you might hear me exchange with my wife would be subject to
your check, whether you would or no, and if my wife should speak of
fidelity or should pronounce judgment upon another woman, as women
have a way of doing, I should not know which way to look. Moreover, if
it came to pass that I counseled charitable consideration in some
wholly commonplace affair of honor, 'because of the apparent lack of
deception,' or something of the sort, a smile would pass over your
countenance, or at least a twitch would be noticeable, and in your
heart you would say: 'poor Innstetten, he has a real