“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, where you were to visit the picture galleries in order to make copies.  You have not executed my commissions, for you have returned home too soon.  That is all, and therefore all connection between us is dissolved.  Farewell, Mr. Court Painter Gabriel Nietzel; you are dismissed!”

He haughtily motioned to the door, turned his back upon the painter, and slowly traversed the apartment.  But Gabriel Nietzel did not go.  There he stood as if rooted to the spot, and stared fixedly at the count, who walked to and fro, as if lost in thought, and seemed to be wholly unconscious that the painter had dared still to remain in his presence.  After a long pause his eye fell quite accidentally on the spot where Gabriel Nietzel stood, and he started as if in sudden terror.

“Why, you still here?” he asked.  “You dare to brave me?  To terrify me with your dull, pale face?  Have you grown deaf, Mr. Court Painter?  Did you not hear me dismiss you?”