“Then give me Helene to wife!” I cried, instantly.

“Spoken like a lover,” said the good Prince.  “You shall have her if I have the giving of her, which I beg leave to doubt.  Something tells me that much water will run under the bridges ere that wedding comes to pass.  But so far as it concerns me the thing is done.  Yet remember, I have never been one wisely to marry, nor yet to give in marriage.”

He smiled a dry, humorsome smile—­the smile of a shrewd miller casting up his thirlage upon the mill door when he sees the fields of his parish ripe to the harvest.

“I wonder why, with her crystals and her ink-pools, the Princess hath not foreseen this.  By the blue robe of Mary, there will be proceedings when she does know.  I think I shall straightway go a-hunting in the mountains with my friend the Margrave!”

He considered a moment longer, and took a deep draught of Rhenish.

“Then the matter of a second,” continued the Prince; “he is to fight, of course?”

“No,” said I; “principals only.”

“I wonder,” said the Prince, meditatively, “if there be anything in that.  It is not our Plassenburg custom between two young men, well surrounded with brisk lads.  Three seconds, and three to meet them point to point, was more our ancient way.”

“It was specially arranged at the request of the Count you Reuss,” I told the Prince.

“If there is to be no fighting of seconds, what do you say to old Dessauer?  He was a pretty blade in my time, and has all the etiquette and chivalry of the business at his finger-ends.  Also he likes you.”

“At any rate, he is ever railing upon me with that sharp tongue of his!” said I.

“But did you ever hear him rail upon any of these young men that lean on rails and roll their eyes under ladies’ windows?” said the Prince.  “Old Leopold Dessauer is even now no weakling.  I warrant he could draw a good sword yet upon occasion.  Anything more lovely than his riposte I never saw.”

The Prince got upon his feet with the difficulty of a man naturally heavy of body, who takes all his exercise upon horseback.

“Page!” he cried.  “My compliments to High State’s Councillor Dessauer, and ask him to come to me here.  You will find him, I think, in the library.”

So to the palace sped the boy; and presently, walking stiffly, but with great dignity, came the old man down to us.

“How about the ancestors, the noble men my predecessors?” cried the Prince, when he saw him; “have you found aught to link the miller of Chemnitz with the Princes of Plassenburg?”

The Councillor smiled, and shook his head gravely.

“Nothing beyond that bit of metal which hangs by your side, Prince Karl,” said Dessauer, pointing to his Highness’s sword.

The Prince looked down at the strong, unadorned hilt thoughtfully and sighed.

“I would I had another to transmit this sword to, as well as the power to wield it, when I take my place as usurper in the histories of the Princes of Plassenburg.”