'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.
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