"Zanti!" cried Herman. "Balthazar Zanti? Why, but then it is he!... I was talking this afternoon to a party of peasants; they told me of the new huts which a new landlord was fitting up in the neighbourhood, but they spoke in dialect and I could not understand them clearly; I thought they said Xanti and I never suspected that it could be Balthazar Zanti. So he's the man!" "Huts?" asked Othomar. "Yes, a village of huts, it seems; they said he was so rich and so generous and was housing I don't know how many peasants, who had lost all that they possessed." "I now remember reading in the papers that Zanti had gone to live at Vaza," said Leoni. "I should like to see those huts: we can take them on our way to-morrow," said Othomar. General Ducardi compressed his bushy eyebrows: "You know, highness, that his majesty is anything but enamoured of Zanti and is even thinking of exiling him. It would perhaps be more in accordance with his majesty's views to ignore what Zanti is doing here for the moment." Othomar, however, was not disposed to yield to the general; a youthful combativeness welled in his breast. "But, general, to ignore anybody's good work in these times is neither gracious nor politic." "I am convinced that, if his majesty knew that Zanti was occupying his castle here, he would have specially requested your highness to hold no communication with the man," said Ducardi, with emphasis. "I am not so sure of that, general," said Othomar, drily. "I believe, on the contrary, that, if his majesty knew that Zanti was doing so much for the victims of the inundations, his majesty would overlook a good deal of his amateur communism." Ducardi gnawed his moustache with a wry smile: "Your highness speaks rather light-heartedly of that amateur communism. Zanti's theories and practice are more than mere dilettantism...." "But, general," rejoined Othomar, gently, "I really do not understand why Zanti's socialism need prevent us at this moment--I repeat, at this particular moment--from appreciating what he is doing, nor why it need interfere with our visiting his huts, considering that we have come to Vaza to inform ourselves of everything that concerns the inundations...." Ducardi looked at him angrily. He was not accustomed to being contradicted like this by his highness. The others listened. The duchess herself, attracted by the discussion, amid which she heard Othomar's voice ringing with youthful authority, had approached with Dutri, curiously. "To say the least of it, it could do no harm just to see those huts: I must grant my cousin as much as that, general," said Herman of Gothland, who was beginning to like Othomar.