A short pause followed, Waldemar pacing impatiently up and down the room.
"I can't think what they are about in the stables. I ordered Norman to be saddled--the men seem to have gone to sleep over it."
"You are in a terrible hurry to get away, are not you?" asked the Squire, drily. "I really believe they have given you some philtre over in C----, which will not allow you to rest anywhere else. You can hardly bear to wait until it is time for you to be in the saddle."
Waldemar made no reply. He began to whistle and to crack his whip in the air.
"The Princess is going back to Paris, I presume?" asked Witold all at once.
"I don't know. It is not decided yet where Leo is to finish his studies. His mother will no doubt be guided by that in the choice of her future home."
"I wish he would go and study in Constantinople, and that his lady mother would be guided by that, and take herself off with him to the land of the Turks; then, at all events, they could not be back for some time," said Herr Witold, spitefully. "That young Baratowski must be a perfect prodigy of learning. You are always talking of his studies."
"Leo has learned a great deal more than I, yet he is four years younger," said Waldemar, in a grumbling voice.
"His mother has kept him to his books, no doubt. That boy has kept the same tutor all the while, you may be sure; while six have decamped from here, and the seventh only stays on with you because he can't very well help himself."
"And why was not I kept to my books?" asked young Nordeck, suddenly, crossing his arms defiantly and going up close to his guardian. The latter stared at him in astonishment.