"Well, my reception was ungracious enough. Your aunt seemed to think at first that I was a full-fledged brigand."
"But it only took ten minutes to win her smiles and make you a declared favorite. What is it you have about you, old fellow, which wins on every one? It makes one believe in the old fable of the rat-catcher."
The old scornful expression, which effaced all his beauty, swept across Hartmut's face now, as he said contemptuously:
"I understand how to sing to tickle the ears of my hearers. You have to strike the chords according to the taste of your listener, but after you have learned that secret no one can withstand you."
"No one?" repeated Egon, as his eye glanced over the room.
"Oh, you're a pessimist with all your inferences. I only wish I knew where Frau von Wallmoden was, but I don't see her in any place."
"His excellency was reading her a little sermon on her undiplomatic utterances in the other room a short time ago."
"Why, did you hear what she said?" asked Egon, surprised.
"Well, I'm glad enough my worshipful aunt was given a snub, and wasn't she furious over it, though; but do you believe that the ambassador would take his wife to task for--hush, here he is himself."
Yes, there was Baron von Wallmoden himself, true enough, and just in front of them as they came from an adjoining room.
It was impossible to avoid a meeting now, and the young prince, who had no premonition that any secret relations existed between the two, hastened to present them.
"Permit me, your excellency, to atone for the neglect of which I was guilty on the mountain the other day, but my friend had disappeared for the moment when we came down from the Tower. Herr Hartmut Rojanow--Baron von Wallmoden."
The eyes of the two men met, the one with a sharp, contemptuous gaze, the other, equally sharp, but haughty and defiant. The ambassador was too much of a diplomat, however, to be other than the courteous gentleman.
His greeting, though cold, was polite, but he turned at once to the prince to speak, and chatted to that gentleman alone for the minute or two that they stood together.
"His excellency is more of a ramrod than ever to-day," said Egon to his friend as they went on. "Whenever that cold, calculating countenance comes near me I feel frost-bitten and long to fly to the torrid zones."