I assented.

In spite of myself, I caught the contagion of his exuberant happiness and faith in his genius.  The prince had applauded his energetic management of the affairs of the mine two or three times in my hearing.  It struck me that he had really found his vocation, and would turn the sneer on those who had called him volatile and reckless.  This led me to a luxurious sense of dependence on him, and I was willing to live on dreaming and amused, though all around me seemed phantoms, especially the French troupe, the flower of the Parisian stage:  Regnault, Carigny, Desbarolles, Mesdames Blanche Bignet and Dupertuy, and Mdlle.  Jenny Chassediane, the most spirituelle of Frenchwomen.  ’They are a part of our enginery, Richie,’ my father said.  They proved to be an irresistible attraction to the margravine.  She sent word to my father that she meant to come on a particular day when, as she evidently knew, I should not be present.  Two or three hours later I had Prince Otto’s cartel in my hands.  Jorian DeWitt, our guest at this season, told me subsequently, and with the utmost seriousness, that I was largely indebted to Mdlle.  Jenny for a touching French song of a beau chevalier she sang before Ottilia in my absence.  Both he and my father believed in the efficacy of this kind of enginery, but, as the case happened, the beau chevalier was down low enough at the moment his highborn lady listened to the song.

It appeared that when Prince Otto met me after my interview with Prince Ernest, he did his best to provoke a rencontre, and failing to get anything but a nod from my stunned head, betook himself to my University.  A friendly young fellow there, Eckart vom Hof, offered to fight him on my behalf, should I think proper to refuse.  Eckart and two or three others made a spirited stand against the aristocratic party siding with Prince Otto, whose case was that I had played him a dishonourable trick to laugh at him.  I had, in truth, persuaded him to relieve me at once of horse and rival at the moment when he was suffering the tortures of a rejection, and I was rushing to take the hand he coveted; I was so far guilty.  But to how great a degree guiltless, how could I possibly explain to the satisfaction of an angry man?  I had the vision of him leaping on the horse, while I perused his challenge; saw him fix to the saddle and smile hard, and away to do me of all services the last he would have performed wittingly.  The situation was exactly of a sort for one of his German phantasy-writers to image the forest jeering at him as he flew, blind, deaf, and unreasonable, vehement for one fierce draught of speed.  We are all dogged by the humour of following events when we start on a wind of passion.  I could almost fancy myself an accomplice.  I realized the scene with such intensity in the light running at his heels:  it may be quite true that I laughed in the hearing of his messenger as I folded up the letter.  That was the man’s report.  I am not commonly one to be forgetful of due observances.