In one of the window recesses of this magnificent apartment, on a certain afternoon in late July, stood Prince Aribert of Posen. He was faultlessly dressed in the conventional frock-coat of English civilization, with a gardenia in his button-hole, and the indispensable crease down the front of the trousers. He seemed to be fairly amused, and also to expect someone, for at frequent intervals he looked rapidly over his shoulder in the direction of the door behind the Royal chair. At last a little wizened, stooping old man, with a distinctly German cast of countenance, appeared through the door, and laid some papers on a small table by the side of the chair. ‘Ah, Hans, my old friend!’ said Aribert, approaching the old man. ‘I must have a little talk with you about one or two matters. How do you find His Royal Highness?’ The old man saluted, military fashion. ‘Not very well, your Highness,’ he answered. ‘I’ve been valet to your Highness’s nephew since his majority, and I was valet to his Royal father before him, but I never saw--’ He stopped, and threw up his wrinkled hands deprecatingly. ‘You never saw what?’ Aribert smiled affectionately on the old fellow. You could perceive that these two, so sharply differentiated in rank, had been intimate in the past, and would be intimate again. ‘Do you know, my Prince,’ said the old man, ‘that we are to receive the financier, Sampson Levi--is that his name?--in the audience chamber? Surely, if I may humbly suggest, the library would have been good enough for a financier?’ ‘One would have thought so,’ agreed Prince Aribert, ‘but perhaps your master has a special reason. Tell me,’ he went on, changing the subject quickly, ‘how came it that you left the Prince, my nephew, at Ostend, and returned to Posen?’ ‘His orders, Prince,’ and old Hans, who had had a wide experience of Royal whims and knew half the secrets of the Courts of Europe, gave Aribert a look which might have meant anything. ‘He sent me back on an-- an errand, your Highness.’ ‘And you were to rejoin him here?’ ‘Just so, Highness. And I did rejoin him here, although, to tell the truth, I had begun to fear that I might never see my master again.’ ‘The Prince has been very ill in Ostend, Hans.’ ‘So I have gathered,’ Hans responded drily, slowly rubbing his hands together. ‘And his Highness is not yet perfectly recovered.’ ‘Not yet. We despaired of his life, Hans, at one time, but thanks to an excellent constitution, he came safely through the ordeal.’ ‘We must take care of him, your Highness.’ ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Aribert solemnly, ‘his life is very precious to Posen.’