“Do so, my son, and always heed the wind as it blows across from the apartments of the Electress and her princesses, as well as from the robber nests and dens of the squires and waylayers of the Mark, and from the fortresses and garrisons.  We, too, my son, voyage together in the same boat; I am the pilot, you unfurl the sails, and upon our flag in mysterious and invisible colors is inscribed this device:  Good Imperialists, good Catholics!”

“Yes, good Imperialists and good Catholics,” replied the young count energetically.  “But, dearest father, let us add besides, quite softly, good Schwarzenbergians!”

“Yes, my son, that will we.  For, in addition to those great and holy interests, to keep one’s own interests a little in view is manly and justifiable.  My heavens! life would have been perfectly hateful and abominable in this dirty, cheerless Berlin if we had not seen above us a glittering star, to which we could look up when all was so dismal here below, which shone upon our path and cheered us when we feared to sink in the mud and mire.  This star, my son, do you know its name?”

“Its name is Fame, its name is Love, cher pere.”

“Well, for the sake of fame I will put up with love, foolish dreamer.  You may bring it on board our boat as ballast.  But if a storm should come and necessity impel, we shall throw our ballast overboard.”

“Dear father, if you do that, you will throw overboard likewise my happiness and life!” exclaimed Count Adolphus warmly.  “If you call love ballast, then forget not, father, that in this ballast your son’s heart is included.”

“Enamored fool, you really have a heart?  Do you believe so?”

“I believe so, most noble father, because I feel it, because—­”

A hasty knock, thrice repeated, at the door of the antechamber interrupted him, and in obedience to the Stadtholder’s summons, the lackey Balthasar hurriedly entered.

“Most gracious sir,” he said, “it is a courier from the Commandant von Rochow at Spandow, who desires to speak with your lordship on most urgent business.”

“I am going, most gracious father, I am going,” cried the young count, speedily rising.  “I can no longer lay claim to the Stadtholder’s precious time.”

“And you have very important affairs of your own to attend to, have you not?” asked his father.  “You have been long enough diplomatist and politician, and that curious thing, whose possession you boast, the heart, will now assert its rights?”

The young man laughed and pressed the count’s extended hand tenderly to his lips.  Then he nodded once more affectionately to his father, and bounded lightly through the room to the side door, through which he vanished.  Count Adam Schwarzenberg looked thoughtfully after his son.  “Strange!” he murmured.  “Is he acting a comedy, or is it truth?  Does he prudently pretend to have a heart, or has he one in reality?  Well, never mind.  The courier from Spandow!”