otten. My orderly ought to
have been duly arrayed by this time."

"Pardon, my Prince," said I, "but all the apparel I have is upon my
sumpter horse, which comes in the train of the Princess."

My master looked right and left in his quickly imperious and yet
humorous manner.

"Here, Count von Reuss," he said to a tall, handsome, heavily jowled
young man, "I pray you strip off thy fine coat for an hour, and lend it
to my new officer-in-waiting. The ladies will admire thee more than
ever in thy fine flowered waistcoat, with silk sleeves and frilled
purfles of lace!"

The young man, Von Reuss, looked as if he desired much to tell the Prince
to go and be hanged. But there was something in the bearing of Karl of
Plassenburg, usurper as they called him, the like of which for command I
have never seen in the countenance and manner of any lawfully begotten
prince in the world.

So, beckoning me into an antechamber, and swearing evilly under his
breath all the time, the young man stripped off his fine coat, and
offered it to me with one hand, without so much as looking at me. He gave
it indeed churlishly, as one might give a dole to a loathsome beggar to
be rid of his importunity.

"I thank you, sir," said I, "but more for your obedience to the Prince
than for the fashion of your courtesy to me."

Yet for all that he answered me never a syllable, but turned his head and
played with his mustache till his man-servant brought him another coat.

CHAPTER XXVII

ANOTHER MAN'S COAT

I followed the Prince without another word, and when he received the
Princess I had the happiness of taking the Little Playmate by the hand
and conducting her as gallantly as I could into the palace. And I was
glad, for it helped to allay a kind of reproachful feeling in my heart,
which would keep tugging and gnawing there whenever I was not thinking of
anything else. I feared lest, in the throng and press of new experiences,
I might a little have neglected or been in danger of forgetting the love
of the many years and all the sweetness of our solitary companionship.

Nevertheless, I knew well that I loved those sweetest eyes of hers more
than all the words of men and women and priests.

And even as I helped her to dismount, I went over and told her so.

It was just when I held her in my arms for a moment as she dismounted.
She clung to me, and methought I heard a little sob.

"Do not ever be unkind, Hugo," she said. "I am very lonel