Page:H.M. The Patrioteer.djvu/233

Rh not exactly a help to you in society just now." Guste's eyes flinched and it was evident that she herself had already arrived at the same conclusion. "Thank heaven," said Magda, "my Kienast is not like that." To which Emma retorted: "But Herr Buck is more interesting. I cried at his speech the other day, it was like being in the theatre."—"Why, of course!" cried Guste, taking courage. "Only yesterday he made me a present of this bag." She held up the gilt bag, at which Emma and Magda had been glancing for some time. Magda said snappishly: "I suppose he made a lot out of that brief. Kienast and I believe in economy." But Guste had had her revenge. "Well, I won't disturb you any longer," she concluded.

Diederich accompanied her downstairs. "I'll see you home, if you are good," he said, "but I must first look in at the factory. They will be breaking off work in a moment."—"But I can go with you," suggested Guste. In order to impress her he led the way to the big paper machine. "I am sure you have never seen anything like that before." He began self-importantly to explain to her the system of tanks, cutters and cylinders, through which the material passed the whole length of the room, first wet, then drier and drier, until at the end of the machine great rolls of finished paper came out. Guste shook her head. "What an idea! And the noise it makes! And the heat here!" Not yet satisfied with the effect he was making, Diederich found an excuse to thunder at the workers, and when Napoleon Fischer came up, he got all the blame.

Both shouted to drown the noise of the machine and Guste could not understand a word. But Diederich's secret fear saw beneath that straggly beard the peculiar grin which was a reminder of Fischer's complicity in the affair of the Double Cylinder, and was an open defiance of all authority. The more violent Diederich became the quieter was the other. That quietness was rebellious! Trembling and fuming