fability; but it was communicated to my
father that he expected an apology before he could allow himself to be
as absolutely unclouded toward us as the blaze of his titles. My father
declined to submit; so the prince inquired of us what our destination
was. Down the Danube to the Black Sea and Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt, the
Nile, the Desert, India, possibly, and the Himalayas, my father said.
The prince bowed. The highest personages, if they cannot travel, are
conscious of a sort of airy majesty pertaining to one who can command so
wide and far a flight. We were supplicated by the margravine to appease
her brother's pride with half a word. My father was firm. The margravine
reached her two hands to him. He kissed over them each in turn. They
interchanged smart semi-flattering or cutting sentences.

'Good!' she concluded; 'now I sulk you for five years.'

'You would decapitate me, madam, and weep over my astonished head, would
you not?'

'Upon my honour, I would,' she shook herself to reply.

He smiled rather sadly.

'No pathos!' she implored him.

'Not while I live, madam,' said he.

At this her countenance underwent a tremour.

'And when that ends... friend! well, I shall have had my last laugh in
the world.'

Both seemed affected. My father murmured some soothing word.

'Then you do mean to stay with me?' the margravine caught him up.

'Not in livery, your Highness.'

'To the deuce with you!' would be a fair translation of the exalted
lady's reply. She railed at his insufferable pride.

'And you were wrong, wrong,' she pursued. 'You offended the prince
mightily: you travestied his most noble ancestor--'

'In your service, may it please you.'

'You offended, offended him, I say, and you haven't the courage to make
reparation. And when I tell you the prince is manageable as your ship,
if you will only take and handle the rudder. Do you perceive?'

She turned to me.

'Hither, Mr. Harry; come, persuade him. Why, you do not desire to leave
me, do you?'

Much the reverse. But I had to congratulate myself subsequently on
having been moderate in the expression of my wishes; for, as my father
explained to me, with sufficient lucidity to enlighten my dulness, the
margravine was tempting him grossly. She saw more than I did of his
plans. She could actually affect to wink at them that she might gain
her point, and have her amusement, and live for the hour, treacherously
beguiling a hoodwinked pair to suppos