"Joachim," said the Grand Duke, in a less pleasant tone than that with which he had favoured me, "this is Monsieur Vignerte, your new Professor of Literature. I hope the progress you make under his charge will be more rapid than when you were with Herr Ulricht. What marks did he get, Kessel, in his last tactics examination?" "Eight out of twenty," replied Kessel. "It's not enough. You must get half marks next time. You can go." The young man went out with ill-concealed relief. "You see, monsieur," said the Grand Duke, turning to us, "you can always count absolutely on my authority. Mark my son strictly, if anything stiffly, and you will always have my approval." He motioned to us to withdraw. "By the way," he added, recalling me, "did Marçais tell you you might occasionally be required to display your gifts as a reader to the Archduchess? Oh," he added, "I ought perhaps to give you a warning, though it may be excessive caution on my part. It is quite possible that my wife won't call upon you at all. At the moment she has returned to her old passion for horses. But, in any case, it does no harm to be forewarned, and you may be quite sure," he concluded, with a smile which he well knew how to make irresistible, "that I shall see that no unreasonable demands are made upon your leisure." "I shall be happy to put myself entirely at the Grand Duchess's disposal whenever she so desires." "Thank you," he said, and turned to his work. In the corridor Kessel said: "If the Grand Duchess takes it into her head to see you, she will send a message immediately through me. I shall communicate with your valet, so don't fail to call at your rooms." Thus it was that from the day after my arrival at the castle to the day of the fête of the Lautenburg Hussars, where I saw her for the first time, I called at my rooms five or six times a day, more disappointed than I cared to admit that the summons which would manifest the good pleasure of the Grand Duchess Aurora-Anna-Eleanor towards me was not forthcoming. 4. THE COURT I doubt whether I should say "Court" in speaking of the entourage of the Dukes of Lautenburg. The word is somewhat too heavy, but it fits in well enough with the rigid etiquette which reigned at the castle. I have already spoken of Major Count Albert von Kessel, of the 11th Prussian Artillery Regiment, stationed at Königsberg. He passed out top of the _Kriegs Academie_ at Berlin, and is undoubtedly one of the best officers in the German Army. He's an officer to his finger-tips, and although devoted body and soul to his profession, displays only the inevitable minimum of that impossible Prussian arrogance. He always treated me with the most perfect courtesy, and I have nothing but praise for the advice he gave me and the influence he had over Duke Joachim.