Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/79

 whom he accused of embodying the devil of Teutonism. Hammerfeldt was aware of his feelings and played with them, while he trusted Baptiste more than anybody about me. He did not know how attached I was to the Frenchman, and I did not intend that he should learn. I had received a sharp lesson with regard to parading my preferences.

It was through Baptiste that I heard of Baron Fritz's side of the case, for Baptiste was friendly with Fritz's servants. The Baron, it appeared, was in despair. "They watch him when he walks by the river," declared Baptiste with a gesture in which dismay and satisfaction were curiously blended.

"Poor fellow!" said I, leaning back in the stern of the boat. To be in such a state on Victoria's account was odd and deplorable.

Baptiste laid down the sculls and leaned forward smiling.

"It is nothing, sire," said he. "It must happen now and again to all of us. M. le Baron will soon be well. Meanwhile he is—oh, miserable!"

"Is he all alone there?" I asked.

"Absolutely, sire. He will see nobody."

I looked up at Waldenweiter.

"He has not even his mother with him," said Baptiste; the remark, as Baptiste delivered it, was impertinent, and yet so intangibly impertinent as to afford no handle for reproof. He meant that the Baron was free from an aggravation; he said that he lacked a consolation.

"Shall I go and see him?" I asked. In truth I was rather curious about him; it was a pleasure to me to break out of my own surroundings.

"What would the Prince say?" said Baptiste.

"He need not know. Row ashore there."