for I would like to have you to wait upon me this week, and Eberhard shall have a holiday the whole week.  I only want to see your old face about me!’ Is not that strange, Sir Baron?  Until yesterday Eberhard stood in such high favor, and my gracious master always preferred being dressed by him.  Only yesterday evening Eberhard must accompany him to the feast, and now, all at once, my gracious master will not see him!  Something must have happened, for last night Eberhard came home much later than the Electoral Prince, and asked, as if bewildered, whether his highness had been back long; and when I told him that the Electoral Prince had bidden me change with him, he turned deadly pale, trembled in every limb, and said, ‘It is all over with me!’ Baron, something surely happened last night.”

“Probably Eberhard has been guilty of some negligence,” said Leuchtmar carelessly.  “He has often been negligent of late, as it seems to me.  He has some love affair on hand, has he not?”

“Yes, Sir Baron, he has gotten in with that artful chambermaid of the Princess Ludovicka, out there at Doornward, and they are engaged to one another.  But people do not say much good of Madame Alice:  she is a cunning French girl and—­”

“Do not trouble yourself about what people say,” interrupted the baron.  “Do your own duty and rejoice that for this week the Electoral Prince gives you the preference over Eberhard.  Go, now, and announce to his highness the chamberlain, Baron von Marwitz, from Berlin.”

A few minutes later the gentleman announced entered the Prince’s drawing room.  Frederick William advanced into the middle of the room to meet him, and greeted him with grave courtesy.

“I was expecting you, baron,” he said coldly.

“Your highness was expecting me?” asked the baron, astonished.  “Your highness knew already that I would come?”

“Yes, I knew it, baron.  My mother’s court painter, Gabriel Nietzel, arrived yesterday, and through him my gracious mother informed me that the Elector would send you to me with a very serious and angry message.  You see, I am prepared.  Deliver your message now, baron.  Let us be seated.”

The Prince sat down in the armchair and made the baron sit opposite him.  His large eyes were fixed upon Marwitz, and burned with a strange, sad light.  His noble pale countenance was of touching beauty.

“You hesitate?” asked the Prince quietly, after a pause.  “What you have to say to me is, then, very bad?”

“No, your highness, not therefore did I delay,” cried the baron, with feeling.  “Your appearance bewildered me, because it pleased me so much.  I have not seen your highness for three years.  You were then hardly fifteen years old, a noble, promising boy, and now I behold you with rapture and delight, seeing that all our expectations have been fulfilled, and that out of the boy has grown a strong, noble, and serious young man.  Yes, Prince, I read it in your countenance, your unhappy fatherland, your unhappy, much-to-be-pitied Brandenburgers, may look with trust and confidence to the future, for you will save and rescue them.”