Waldemar deigned no reply. He paced up and down the room impatiently. "I'd like to know what they're about there in the stable," he muttered, impatiently. "I gave orders to have Norman saddled, but the groom must have gone to sleep."
"You seem in a prodigious hurry to get away," said Herr Witold. "I actually believe they give you some magic potion over in C----, so that you find peace nowhere else. You are always impatient now when out of the saddle."
Waldemar's only reply was to whistle softly and beat the air with his riding-whip.
"Will the princess return to Paris?" Witold asked, abruptly.
"I do not know; it has not been settled where Leo will finish his studies. My mother will accompany him wherever he goes."
"I wish he would study in Constantinople, and that his princess-mother would go with him to Turkey; then they would be out of the way,--for a time, at least. This young Zulieski must be a prodigy of learning; you are always harping upon his acquirements."
"Leo has learned far more than I, and yet he is nearly four years younger."
"His mother, no doubt, has kept him constantly at his books; but he probably has had but one tutor, while six have run away from you, and the seventh is tempted to remain only for reasons connected with his own scientific researches."
"And why have I not been kept at my books?" asked young Nordeck, excitedly and reproachfully.
"I really believe the boy blames me because I have let him have his own way in everything!" exclaimed Witold, in an injured tone.