When he was alone, Greifenstein sat down to consider the situation,
after carefully filling and lighting the pipe his son had brought him
at his last visit. He was in the habit of doing this every day when he
came home, and it seemed to him that to omit any detail of his ordinary
life would be to show an amount of emotion quite unworthy of himself.
It was one of those small acts, performed alone, which are the truest
indications of a man's character. If he was not able to smoke his pipe
as usual, it must be because he was unable to bear calmly what had come
upon him, and consequently was not fit to meet his wife at dinner
without betraying his anxiety. It was not an act that showed
indifference, as many would think. On the contrary, it was the
expression of his indomitably conscientious nature. To change one small
thing in his demeanour, even when he was alone, would have been to
begin badly and at a disadvantage.
He scrupulously put his feet upon the same spot on the fender at which
they usually rested when he came home, he sat in his accustomed
attitude, and he smoked with his accustomed solemnity. It would be a
mistake to exaggerate the importance which Rieseneck's coming had in
his eyes, as far as any material consequences to himself were
concerned. There was no ruin before him, no inevitable disaster. He
dreaded the moral side of the incident, and worst of all the
possibility of his being obliged to tell Clara of the existence of his
disgraced brother.
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