It was thus that I learnt the name of my future pupil. My old tutor thought a few seconds more, and then, raising his glasses towards me: "May I ask if you are already bound by any formal contract?" "Not yet, strictly speaking, but my mind is made up, and I shall go unless some one else is preferred to me." "In that case let us say no more," said M. Thierry, putting the book back. I was intrigued and a little annoyed. "My dear master," I said, "will you be really frank with me? I know you are too interested in my welfare to suggest my refusing such an attractive offer unless you had very serious reasons for doing so. Besides, I may confess that in coming to you this morning I hoped to obtain some valuable information about the Court of Lautenburg-Detmold for your unique knowledge of the men and affairs of modern Germany. I am sure you are even more familiar with these details than I suspected. I am to interview Count de Marçais, our Minister at Lautenburg, very shortly, but it will not be easy for me to question him. Besides, a diplomatist must doubtless observe a certain reticence, which you have not the same reason to consider with me. To put it shortly, may I ask you a question which sums up all this? If you had a son, Monsieur Thierry, would you let him do what I propose to do? Would you let him go to Lautenburg?" He looked straight at me, and replied firmly, "No." I confess that my astonishment began to give place to a slight feeling of apprehension. I knew perfectly well that it was not childish pique at my not accepting the post he had found for me, that influenced a man of his profound judgment. "You must have very good reasons, sir," I said, my voice trembling a little, "to give me so categorical an answer." "I certainly have," he replied. "Would you mind telling me what it was you looked up in that book?" "My dear boy, don't start thinking that that year book of Reigning Houses contains any details of a kind to justify the apprehension I feel at your going to Lautenburg. I have verified a name, confirmed certain recollections--that's all. "It is true that I have certain private information about the House of Lautenburg-Detmold of which Count de Marçais himself might know nothing, even assuming that he were a more gifted diplomatist than he is reported to be. Besides, he has not been very long at Lautenburg, and never knew the late Grand Duke Rudolph." "Who was the Grand Duke Rudolph?" "Haven't you ever heard of him? He was the elder brother of the present Grand Duke. He died a few years ago, two, if I remember rightly." "So it was his death which gave the succession to the Grand Duke Frederick Augustus?" "Not directly. The constitution of Lautenburg-Detmold is peculiar. The Salic Law does not apply, and the ducal crown, on the Grand Duke's death, passed to his wife, the Grand Duchess Aurora Anna Eleanor." "So she has married her brother-in-law?"