It was time to bring her around to his way of thinking, to convince her that she could secure no better match than her neighbor and former childhood friend. He had been patient long enough. It was time to press toward a formal solidification of their engagement. Surely she would now see the advantage of taking him. He was glad she was feisty! It would make life more full of zest.

There was but one problem with the scenario as he envisioned it. Even should he marry Sabina, it still left them under the roof of one of their two fathers. If he intended to make the Dortmann estate his before he was an old man, he had to solve the problem of the presence of Sabina’s father.

He despised the pious old fool. His own father felt the same way. Gustav knew the count would buy the estate out from under him if he had half the chance. Even marriage, however, wouldn’t adequately remedy the problem. The baron was strong as an ox, twice as healthy, and too adroit in financial and farming matters to allow even the war to disturb his standing.

The only way to secure the estate, and to insure no interference from Sabina’s father, was to get rid of the baron somehow. The estate would then fall into Sabina’s hands, and thence, by marriage, into his own.

It was the only solution. And while it yet lasted, the war might be able somehow to provide him with just the raw material for such a coup de maître.

Such was one possible scenario.

There were others, however. Did he want to live in the country around Niedersdorf for the rest of his life? With beautiful Baroness Sabina as his wife, he could go anyplace, do anything.

He was still a young man. Opportunities would surely abound, even after a surrender. He knew enough about history to know that defeat occasionally presented the greatest opportunities of all.

Working, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, for Emil Korsch had taught him a great deal about realism. He suspected, though he would not dare hint at such a thing, that Korsch himself was probably not even much of a Nazi at heart, but was only going along with the programme of national socialism out of expediency. The moment the German army had surrendered at Stalingrad, he had detected subtle changes in his superior. Korsch had begun watching events in the east with increased interest, paying keen attention to the advance of the Russian army.