u tell me there is a woman; and all your talk is about war and
danger. These are opposites; please explain."

"There is a woman, but she will not hinder me in any way. She will, in
fact, know nothing about it."

"You are a strange lover. I never read anything like you in
story-books. Forgive me! I am thoughtless. The subject may be painful to
you."

The horses began to pull. Under normal circumstances Carmichael would
not have dismounted, but his horse had carried him many miles that
morning, and he was a merciful rider. In the war days often had his life
depended upon the care of his horse.

"You have been riding hard?"

"No, only far."

"I do not believe that there is a finer horseman in all Ehrenstein than
yourself."

"Your highness is very good to say that." Why had he not gone on instead
of waiting at the fork?

Within a few hundred yards of the gates he mounted again. And then he
saw a lonely figure sitting on the parapet. He would have recognized
that square form anywhere. And he welcomed the sight of it.

"Your Highness, do you see that man yonder, on the parapet? We fought in
the same cavalry. He is covered with scars. Not one man in a thousand
would have gone through what he did and lived."

"Is he an American?"

"By adoption. And may I ask a favor of your highness?"

"Two!" merrily.

"May I present him? It will be the joy of his life."

"Certainly. All brave men interest me."

Grumbach rose up, uncovered, thinking that the riders were going to pass
him. But to his surprise his friend Carmichael stopped his horse and
beckoned to him.

"Herr Grumbach," said Carmichael, "her serene highness desires me to
present you."

Hans was stricken dumb. He knew of no greater honor.

"Mr. Carmichael," she said in English, "tells me that you fought with
him in the American war?"

"Yes, Highness."

She plied him with a number of questions; how many battles they had
fought in, how many times they had been wounded, how they lived in camp,
and so forth; and which was the more powerful engine of war, the
infantry or the cavalry.

"The cavalry, Highness," said Hans, without hesitation.

She laughed. "If you had been a foot-soldier, you would have said the
infantry; of the artillery, you would have sworn by the cannon."

"That is true, Highness. The three arms are necessary, but there is ever
the individual pride in the arm one serves in."

"And that is right. You speak good English," she remarked.