It came out with a rush at last.

"Oh!" said he; "that is bad. I hope that is not a matter arranged, a thing serious. For if the Princess knows as much, the young woman will not have her troubles to seek in the Palace of Pla.s.senburg."

I hung my head and said naught, save that Helene declared she loved me not, but that I thought she was mistaken.

"Ah, then," cried the Prince, like one exceedingly relieved, "it is but some boy and girl affair. That is better. She may change her mind, as you will certainly change yours--and that several times--among the ladies of the court. I was in hopes--"

And the Prince stopped in his turn, not from bashfulness, but rather like a man who desires more carefully to choose his words.

"I was in hopes," he went on, speaking slowly, "that if the Princess loved your boy's face and liked my conversation (which I may say without pride that I think she does) you and I together might have kept her at home. So over-much wandering is not good for the state. Also it gets her a name beyond all manner of ill-doing within-doors."

Once more I knew not well what to answer to this speech of the Prince's, so I remained discreetly silent.

"I have seen the Princess's flittermice about her before, often enough (I thank thee for the word, Sir Captain.), but this is the first time she has performed the ink-pool and crystal foolery with any man. There is no great harm in the Princess. In the things of love she is as inflammable as the ink, and as soft as the crystal. Fear not, Joseph, Potiphera may be depended upon not to proceed to extremities. But I was in some hopes that you and I could have arranged matters between us, being both men--aye, and honorable men."

I saw that Karl Miller's Son looked sad and troubled.

"Prince, you love the Princess!" said I, thrusting out my hand to him before I thought. He did not take it, but instead he thrust a flagon of wine into it, as if I had asked for that--yet the thing was not done by way of a rebuff. I saw that plainly.

"Pshaw! What does a grizzle-pate with love?" said he, gruffly.

"Nevertheless, I was in hopes."

"Prince Karl," said I, "I give you word of honor, 'tis not as you say or they say. The Princess has indeed done me the honor to be friendly--"

"To hold your hand!" he murmured, softly, like a chorus.

"Well, to be friendly, and--"

"To caress your cheek?" put in the Prince, gently as before.

"Done me the honor to be friendly--"

"To play with your curls, lad?"

"The Princess--" I began, all in a tremor. For anything more awkward than this conversation I had never experienced. It bathed me in a drip of cold sweat.

"To kiss you, perhaps, at the waygoing?" he insinuated.

"No!" thundered I, at last. "Prince, you do your Princess great wrong."

He lifted his hand in a gentle, deprecating way, most unlike the rider who had ridden so fast and so hotly that night of our coming.

"You mistake me, sir," he said. "On the contrary, I have the greatest respect for the Princess Ysolinde. I would not wrong her for the world.

But I know her track of old. You are a brave lad, and, after all, I fear there is something in that calf-love of yours--devil take it!"

I thought I could now dimly discern whither the Prince's plans were tending.

"Your Highness," said I, "I am a young man and of little experience. I cannot tell why you have chosen to speak so freely to me. But I am your servant, and, in all that hurts not the essence and matter of my love for the Little Playmate, I will do even as you say."

Prince Karl grasped my hand.

"Ah, well said!" he cried. "You are running your head into a peck of troubles, though. And you are likely to have some experience of womenkind shortly--a thing which does no brisk young fellow any harm, unless he lets them come between him and his career. Women are harmless enough, so that you keep them well down to leeward. I am Baltic-bred, and have ever held to this--that you may sail unscathed through fleets of farthingales, so being that you keep the wind well on your quarter, and see the fair-way clear before you."

I did not at the time understand half he said, but I knew we had made some sort of a bargain. And I thought, with an aching, unsatisfied heart, that though it might be well enough for an iron-gray and cynical old Prince, the thing would hardly commend itself to Helene, my Little Playmate, to whom I had so recently spoken loving words, sweeter than ever before.

"Devil take all Princes and Princesses!" I said, as I thought, to myself.

But I must have spoken aloud, for the Prince laughed.

"Do not waste good prayers needlessly," he said; "he will!"

And so, with a careless and humorsome wave of his hand to one side, he went down the staircase, and so out into the quadrangle of the Palace.

CHAPTER XXIX

LOVES ME--LOVES ME NOT

Now how this plan of my Lord Prince's worked in the Palace of Pla.s.senburg I find it difficult to tell without writing myself down a "painted flittermouse," as the Prince expressed it. I was in high favor with my master; well liked also by most of the hard-driving, rough-riding young soldiers whom the miller's son had made out of the sons of dead and d.a.m.ned Ritterdom. I got my share of honor and good service, too, in going to different courts and bringing back all that Prince Karl needed. To exercise myself in the art of war, I hunted the border thieves and gave them short enough shrift. In a year I had made such an a.s.sault as that of the inn at Erdberg an impossibility all along the marches of our provinces.

The crusty old councillor, Leopold Dessauer, who had held office under the last Prince of the legitimate line, was ever ready to a.s.sist me with the kindest of deeds and the bitterest and saltest of words.

"What did I tell you about being Field-Marshal?" said he one day--"in Karl's kingdom the shorter the service, the higher the distinction.

If you and the Prince live long enough, I shall see you carry a musketoon yet, and not one of the latest pattern, either. You will be promoted down, like a b.o.o.by who has been raised by chance to the top of the cla.s.s!"

"Well," said I, humbly, for I always reverenced age, "then I hope, High-Chancellor Dessauer, that I shall carry my musketoon as becomes a brave man!"

"I do not doubt it!" said he. "And that is the most hopeful thing I have seen about you yet. It is just possible, on the other hand, that you may yet rule and the Prince carry the piece."

"G.o.d forbid!" said I, heartily. For next to my own father, of all men I loved the Prince.

"The Princess hath a pretty hand," remarked Dessauer casually, as if he had said, "It will rain to-morrow!"

"I' faith, yes!" said I; "what have you been at to find out that?"

"Weak--weak!" he said, shaking his head. "I fear you will wreck on that rock. It is your blind peril!"

"My blind peril!" cried I. "What may that be, High Councillor?"

"Ah, lad," he said, smiling with that wise, all-patient smile which the aged affect when they mean to be impressive, yet know how useless is their wisdom, "it was never intended by the Almighty that any man should have eyes all round his head. That is why He fixed two in front, and made them look straight forward. That is also why He made us a little lower (generally a good deal lower) than the angels!"

I heard him as if I heard him not.

"You do me the honor to follow me?" he said, looking at me. He was, I think, conscious that my eyes wandered to the door, for indeed I was expecting the Little Playmate to come down every minute.

"Ah! yes, you follow indeed," he said, bitterly, "but it is the trip of feet, the flirt of farthingales down the turret steps. No matter! As I was saying, every man has his blind peril. He can see the thousand. He provides laboriously against them. He blocks every avenue of risk, he locks every dangerous door, and lo! there is the thousand-and-first right before him, yawning wide open, which he does not see--his Blind Peril!"