nd to me, yes, he even tried to smile.
'Gabriel Nietzel,' he said, 'make all speed to reach Berlin right soon. I
shall desire my mother to allow you to enter my special service, and then
you shall paint for me many a pretty picture. Until then, farewell!' He
once more nodded kindly to me, and jumped into the carriage."

"That is the only time that you have spoken at all to the Electoral
Prince?"

"No, your honor, on the very day of my arrival I had an audience with him,
and the Electoral Prince was highly delighted to receive news from home. I
must tell him everything in detail, and since, with your gracious
permission, I claimed to side with your lordship's opponents, the
Electoral Prince immediately became very confidential and affectionate to
me, receiving me into his house and retinue, and promising to present me
at the courts of the Stadtholder and the Queen of Bohemia."

"How came it, then, that the Prince so immediately afterward suddenly took
the resolution to depart?"

"Most gracious sir, four-and-twenty hours after myself the Chamberlain von
Marwitz arrived at The Hague, and had a long conversation with the
Electoral Prince. Immediately after that the Electoral Prince gave orders
for departure, and three hours later had already left The Hague."

"Now it seems, therefore, that Baron von Marwitz is a very persuasive
speaker, who well understood how to move the Electoral Prince's heart, and
to lead him back to obedience to his father and--myself. I shall therefore
prove my gratitude to Herr von Marwitz. I like very much to have my orders
and commissions executed punctiliously and exactly, and this Herr von
Marwitz has done, for I had bidden him to leave no means untried whereby
the Electoral Prince might be induced to leave Holland."

A crushing glance from his large gray eyes as he uttered these words fell
full upon Gabriel Nietzel's pale and contrite face, making his heart quake
with undefined dread.

"Your honor is very angry with me?" he asked faintly.

"You?" exclaimed the count in astonishment. "Why should I be angry with
you? What have I to do with you? I only know you as the painter Nietzel,
who sold me a copy for a good original, and whom I could therefore have
condemned to the gallows as a falsifier and cheat. But you know I have
forgiven you, and let your copy be valued as an original. I even went
further in my magnanimous forgiveness; I had even intrusted you with
commissions for Holland, wher