Pleasure in the scenery had gone, and the wood-sprite was a flitted vapour; he longed to be below there, observing Abrane and Potts and the philosopher confounded, and the legible placidity of Countess Livia.  Nevertheless, he hung aloft, feeding where he could, impatient of the solitudes, till night, when, according to his guess, the ladies were at their robing.

Half the fun was over:  but the tale of it, narrated in turn by Abrane and his Chummy Potts on the promenade, was a very good half.  The fiddler had played for the countess and handed her back her empty purse, with a bow and a pretty speech.  Nothing had been seen of him since.  He had lost all his own money besides.  ‘As of course he would,’ said Potts.  ’A fellow calculating the chances catches at a knife in the air.’

‘Every franc-piece he had!’ cried Abrane.  ’And how could the jackass expect to keep his luck!  Flings off his old suit and comes back here with a rig of German bags—­you never saw such a figure!—­Shoreditch Jew’s holiday!—­why, of course, the luck wouldn’t stand that.’

They confessed ruefully to having backed him a certain distance, notwithstanding.  ’He took it so coolly, just as if paying for goods across a counter.’

‘And he had something to bear, Braney, when you fell on him,’ said Potts, and murmured aside:  ’He can be smartish.  Hears me call Braney Rufus, and says he, like a fellow-chin on his fiddle—­“Captain Mountain, Rufus Mus’.  Not bad, for a counter."’

Fleetwood glanced round:  he could have wrung Woodseer’s hand.  He saw young Cressett instead, and hailed him:  ’Here you are, my gallant!  You shall flash your maiden sword tonight.  When I was under your age by a long count, I dealt sanctimoniousness a flick o’ the cheek, and you shall, and let ’em know you’re a man.  Come and have your first boar-hunt along with me.  Petticoats be hanged.’

The boy showed some recollection of the lectures of his queen, but he had not the vocables for resistance to an imperative senior at work upon sneaking inclinations.  ‘Promised Lady F.’—­do you hear him?’ Fleetwood called to the couple behind; and as gamblers must needs be parasites, manly were the things they spoke to invigorate the youthful plunger and second the whim of their paymaster.

At half-past eleven, the prisoner of his word entered under the Schloss partico, having vowed to himself on the way, that he would satisfy the formulas to gain release by a deferential bow to the great personages, and straightway slip out into the heavenly starlight, thence down among the jolly Parisian and Viennese Bacchanals.

CHAPTER XII

HENRIETTA’S LETTER TREATING OF THE GREAT EVENT

By the first light of an autumn morning, Henrietta sat at her travelling-desk, to shoot a spark into the breast of her lover with the story of the great event of the night.  For there had been one, one of our biggest, beyond all tongues and trumpets and possible anticipations.  Wonder at it hammered on incredulity as she wrote it for fact, and in writing had vision of her lover’s eyes over the page.