The young Dane sat alone on the window-seat, his chin in his hands, his eyes dreamy, a faint smile on his shapely lips, when Ernest Augustus burst furiously in, the Countess von Platen lingering just beyond the threshold. The Elector’s face was apoplectically purple from rage and haste, his breath came in wheezing gasps. His bulging eyes swept round the chamber, and fastened finally, glaring, upon the startled Königsmark. “Where is the Princess?” he blurted out. The Count espied Madame von Platen in the back ground, and had the scent of mischief very strong. But he preserved an air of innocent mystification. He rose and answered with courteous ease: “Your Highness is seeking her? Shall I ascertain for you?” At a loss, Ernest Augustus stared a moment, then flung a glance over his shoulder at the Countess. “I was told that her Highness was here,” he said. “Plainly,” said Königsmark, with perfect calm, “you have been misinformed.” And his quiet glance and gesture invited the Elector to look round for himself. “How long have you been here yourself?” Feeling at a disadvantage, the Elector avoided the direct question that was in his mind. “Half an hour at least.” “And in that time you have not seen the Princess?” “Seen the Princess?” Königsmark’s brows were knit perplexedly. “I scarcely understand your Highness.” The Elector moved a step and trod on a soft substance. He looked down, then stooped, and rose again, holding in his hand a woman’s glove. “What’s this?” quoth he. “Whose glove is this?” If Königsmark’s heart missed a beat—as well it may have done—he did not betray it outwardly. He smiled; indeed he almost laughed. “Your Highness is amusing himself at my expense by asking me questions that only a seer could answer.” The Elector was still considering him with his ponderously suspicious glance, when quick steps approached. A serving-maid, one of Sophia’s women, appeared in the doorway of the pavilion. “What do you want?” the Elector snapped at her. “A glove her Highness lately dropped here,” was the timid answer, innocently precipitating the very discovery which the woman had been too hastily dispatched to avert. The Elector flung the glove at her, and there was a creak of evil laughter from him. When she had departed’ he turned again to Königsmark. “You fence skilfully,” said he, sneering, “too skilfully for an honest man. Will you now tell me without any more of this, precisely what the Princess Sophia was doing here with you?” Königsmark drew himself stiffly up, looking squarely into the furnace of the Elector’s face. “Your Highness assumes that the Princess was here with me, and a prince is not to be contradicted, even when he insults a lady whose spotless purity is beyond his understanding. But your Highness can hardly expect me to become in never so slight a degree a party to that insult by vouchsafing any answer to your question.” “That is your last word, sir?” The Elector shook with suppressed anger.