tiste.

"He need not know. Row ashore there."

"You must not go, sire. It would be known, and they would say----"
Baptiste's shrug was eloquent.

"Do they always talk about everything one does?"

"Certainly, sire, it is your privilege," smiled my servant. "But I think
he might come to you. That could be managed; not in the Schloss, but in
the wood, quite privately. I can contrive it."

Baptiste did contrive it, and Baron Fritz came. I was now just too old
to scorn love, just too young to sympathize fully with it. There is that
age in a boy's life, but since he holds his tongue about it, it is apt
to escape notice, and people jest on the sudden change in his attitude
toward women. Nothing in nature is sudden; no more, then, is this
transition. I looked curiously at Fritz; he was timid with me. I
perceived that he was not an ordinary young nobleman, devoted only to
sport and wine; he had something of Owen's romance, but in him it was
self-centred, not open wide to embrace the universe of things beautiful
and ugly. He thanked me for receiving him in a rather elaborate and
artificial fashion. I wondered at once that he had caught Victoria's
fancy; her temperament seemed too robust for him. He began to speak of
her in some very poetical phrases; he quoted a line of poetry about
Diana and Endymion. I had been made to turn it into Latin verses, and
its sentiment fell cold on my soul. He spoke of his passion with
desperation, and I thought with pride. He said that, happen what might,
his whole life was the Princess's; but he did not mention Victoria's
name, he said "her" with an air of mystery, as though spies lurked in
the woods. There was nobody save Baptiste, standing sentry to guard this
secret meeting. I gave the Baron a cigarette, and lit one myself; I had
begun the habit, though still surreptitiously.

"You must have known there'd be a row?" I suggested.

"Tell me of her!" he cried. "Is she in great grief?"

I did not want to tell him about Victoria; I wanted him to tell me about
himself. As soon as he understood this, I am bound to say that he
gratified me at once. I sat looking at him while he described his
feelings; all at once he turned and discovered my gaze on him.

"Go on," said I.

The Baron appeared uncomfortable. His eyes fell to the ground, and he
tried to puff at his cigarette which he had allowed to go out. I daresay
he thought me a strange boy; but he could not very well say so.

"You don't und