I forget what I owe you, and how faithful you have otherwise been to me.  Leuchtmar, it is dreadful that you have turned against me.  Go, we have parted!  Go!  And when you get home to Berlin, then say to my father’s Austrian minister, that I shall never forgive him for what he has this day done to me, and that the Elector Frederick William will avenge the Electoral Prince.  Tell him that I shall never accept an Austrian archduchess, a Catholic, as my wife—­never become the humble slave of the Emperor of Germany.  This is my farewell!”

And with flaming countenance and eyes flashing with energy and passion, the Prince crossed the apartment, violently pulled open the door, and strode out.  Leuchtmar looked after him with a mixture of tenderness and grief.  “How angry he was, and yet how glorious to look upon!” he said softly to himself.  “A young hero, who one day will perform his vow.  He will not bow down as the vassal of the German Emperor!”

A side door was just now easily and cautiously opened, and an older man of venerable aspect, in simple court garb, timidly entered, looking carefully around, as if he dreaded finding some one else in the apartment.

“Baron, for heaven’s sake, what has happened here?” he asked anxiously.  “The Electoral Prince has been talking so loudly and so angrily that they heard him all through the house, and now he has stormed out and shouted to have his horse saddled.  Almighty God! what has happened?”

Baron Leuchtmar laid his hand upon his friend’s arm, and nodded kindly to him.  “My dear Mueller,” he said, with a faint smile, “nothing more has happened than that the Electoral Prince has just dismissed me in anger, and sent me home to Berlin.”

“For pity’s sake, what is that you say?” asked the private secretary, clasping his trembling hands together in painful astonishment.  “He has been so ungrateful as to thrust from him his best and truest friend?”

“I tell you yes, my dear Mueller, he has done so, and in wrath.  You know well that hastiness of temper is an heirloom of the Brandenburg princes, and Frederick William can not deny that he has the family failing.  Yes, he has dismissed me; but then, you know, it was perfectly natural, for he loves the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine, and I ventured to criticise her.”

“It is actually true, then, that he loves her?  He has allowed himself to be enticed by the siren!  Ah! she is the genuine grandchild of Mary Stuart, and knows how to charm.”

“Hush, Mueller, hush!  If the Electoral Prince hears that, he will send you to the devil too!”

“He may do so,” cried the old gentleman indignantly.  “If he drives you away, his tutor and his best friend, then I shall reckon it an honor to be sent away likewise.”

“Well, well my friend, be not so desperate.  We know our dear Electoral Prince.  He is a lion when angry, a child when his anger is appeased.  Let us wait; to-day I shall conceal myself from him, and to-morrow, well, to-morrow he will call for me himself.  But did you not say that he had given orders for his horse to be saddled?”