Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/360

 lines of logic. I could imagine Princess Heinrich according amplest approval to the scheme.

Suddenly, as I passed in meditation through a quiet street, a hand was laid on my shoulder. I knew only one man who would stop me in that way. Was he here again, risen again, in Forstadt again, for work, or mirth, or mischief? He came in fitting with the visit I had paid. I turned and found his odd, wry smile on me, the knit brows and twinkling eyes. He lifted his hat and tossed back the iron-gray hair.

"I am come to the wedding, sire," said he, bowing.

"It would be incomplete without you, Wetter."

"And for another thing—for a treat, for a spectacle. They've written an epithalamium, haven't they?"

"Yes, some fool, according to his folly."

"It is to be sung at the opera the night before? At the gala performance!"

"You're as well up in the arrangements as Bederhof himself."

"I have cause. Whence come you, sire?"

"From paying a visit to the Countess von Sempach."

He burst into a laugh, but the look in his eyes forbade me to be offended.

"That's very whimsical too," he observed. "There's a smack of repetition about this. Is fate hard-up for new effects?"

"There's variety enough here for me. There were no decorations in the streets when I left her before."

"True, true; and—for I must return to my tidings—I bring you something new." He paused and