g." Then he turned
to me and took my hand. Immediately his expression changed and a look of
bewilderment spread over his face. "Good Heavens! Michael's cross!" I
heard him mutter to himself, and I could not have been mistaken, for the
others of the party heard it also.

An awkward pause followed, during which I thought of that interview with
the gipsy so many years before. Perhaps Max was thinking of it also, for
his face grew very hard, and I knew by experience that he was battling
with the temper that was trying to get possession of him. Nothing was
said on the subject, however, and when Marquart had recovered his
self-possession (why he should have lost it I cannot say) we followed
our elders into the house. Though he endeavoured not to show it, I am
inclined to believe that my father was more touched by his old
Minister's visit than he would have liked us to suppose. At any rate, he
forebore to indulge in his usual fits of cynicism. Though at dinner that
evening he did not once refer to Pannonia, I feel certain a large
portion of his thoughts were with her. Indeed, all things considered, it
could scarcely have been otherwise. Since the establishment of the
Republic, the old Chancellor had held aloof from public affairs. Nothing
would induce him to take any part in the new state of things. "They have
mounted their horse of folly," he had observed when he had been
approached on the subject, "let them ride it to death. I, for one, will
not attempt to stop them." With that he had retired to his castle at
Friedelbain, and had sat himself down to work out his Logarithms and to
wait for the old order to reassert itself. This he confidently believed
would some day come to pass.

After dinner, my father and Marquart withdrew to the former's study,
while Max and I joined our mother in the drawing-room. Her
lady-in-waiting, for though we were in exile we still preserved the
semblance of a Court, was reading to her; but when we entered, at a
signal from my mother, she stopped and put away her book. It was easily
seen that the former had been upset by something, for, when we spoke to
her, her thoughts seemed far away, and she answered with a hesitation
that was by no means usual to her. Another thing struck me as
remarkable, and that was her treatment of Max. They had not quarrelled;
indeed, I had never known them to do such a thing, and yet her behaviour
towards him seemed based on something that I could not for the life of
m