“No, you old boor!” cried the prince, half amused, half angry.  “Go on, now; we don’t need any sermon on morals.”

Stadinger obeyed, he bowed low and marched off.  Rojanow glanced after him and shrugged his shoulders with a sneer.

“I admire your forbearance, Egon; you certainly permit your servants to speak very freely—­”

“Oh, Stadinger is an exception,” declared Egon.  “Of late days he has allowed himself great latitude, but as to his sending Zena away he wasn’t far wrong.  I’d have done the same thing in his place.”

“It isn’t the first time the old fellow has made so bold as to call us both to account.  If I were his master—­he’d get his dismissal in this same hour.”

“I’m afraid if I attempted that, it would be all the worse for me,” laughed the prince.  “Such an old heir-loom, who has served three generations already, and trotted me on his knee as a baby, deserves to be treated with respect.  I would gain nothing by commanding and calling him to account.  Peter Stadinger does what he pleases, and whenever it suits him, reads me a little text into the bargain.”

“How you can permit such liberties is incomprehensible.”

“It is natural that you should not understand it, Hartmut,” said his friend, earnestly.  “You only know the submissiveness of Sclavish servants in your own home, and in the Orient.  They kneel and prostrate themselves whenever opportunity offers, and betray their masters at every turn, when it can be done with safety.  Stadinger is a man with no civility in him.  It doesn’t make the least difference to him that I am ‘your highness.’  He is no respecter of persons, and has often said the most insulting things to my face, but I could leave hundreds of thousands in his hands, and he would guard every pfennig, and if Rodeck were in a blaze, and I within it, his seventy years would not prevent him plunging into the flames to rescue me—­that’s how it is with us in Germany.”

“Yes, with you in Germany,” Hartmut repeated slowly, as he fixed his eyes dreamily on the forest shadows.

“Are you as much prejudiced against us as ever?” asked Egon.  “I had to beg you hard enough to get you to come with me, for you seemed resolved never to put foot on German soil again.”

“I would I had not done so,” said Rojanow, darkly.  “You know—­”

“That you associate bitter memories with my country—­yes.  You told me that much, but you must have been a boy at the time.  You should have outgrown your dislike by now.  You are, on this point, so obstinately reserved, that to this day I have never learned what it is that you—­”

“Egon, I beg you, drop the subject,” said Hartmut, almost rudely.  “I have declared to you more than once, that I will not and cannot speak on the subject of my early life.  If you are suspicious of me, let me go; I have not forced myself upon you, you know that, but I will not endure this questioning.”