“So much I have inferred,” said the young archduke, his voice not cold but even, “from the Duke of Parma’s recent advices to me recommending your recall. I had not known before, Tiretta, that a soldier looked upon the vindication of his honour as so difficult a task.” He noted, with an observant interest, the spasm that twitched the set features at his words. He was in all things curious and analytical. “I have deserved this,” was the low answer. “Stab, sir, and turn your creese in the wound.” “You do me an injustice,” said Joseph calmly. “It is to the scalpel, not the sword, that I would have you reveal yourself. If I probe, I probe for instruction. The soldier’s code, for instance--is it not a strict one? What harder thing did I ask of you than to obey orders? I seek simply for information.” “No need to. I am a villain.” “Tut-tut, my friend! That is merely to beg the question. You know my views very well. A man is not to be summed up in that convenient fashion. Is it, for instance, the assertion of a villain that he would sacrifice his life for his friend?” “Would to God I could do it, and so cut the knot!” The eyes, watchful, inquisitive, in the pale narrow young face, canvassed the speaker curiously. “Well,” said their owner at length: “will you not answer my question?” “You ask me, sir, what was peculiarly hard to me, a soldier, in that mere call to obedience? Nothing, I answer. That you could send me into the fight, having first broken my sword in its scabbard--that was the hard thing.” The prince seemed to ponder a little, sitting without movement, save for a slight corrugation of his brows. “No, I do not understand,” he said presently. “You would seem to imply that I wilfully dedicated you to destruction.” “Wilfully, yes. I do not say consciously.” “Can will be unconscious of itself?” “In princes, sir, because no one dreams of questioning it in them. There can be no conscious force without conscious resistance.” The young philosopher considered again, as appraising a plausible theory. “Very well,” he said. “Then, to return from the abstract to the particular, what is represented in fact by this symbol of the broken sword?” “My broken honour, sir, for which you were responsible.” “No, you must explain.” “What--have you forgotten the incident at the ford, from which all this luckless mission derived? To send a convicted pander to sing his employer’s praises! God in heaven! Who but a prince could have failed to foresee the end?” “Well, sir--continue. I begin, I think, to perceive.”