"It would never do," went on Trafford ironically, "for your husband to fall out of favour with the humane King Karl. He might wake to find himself in the dungeons of the Strafeburg;" and with a polite bow he returned through the dining-room to the balcony.
"Well," he asked of Saunders, "does peace reign at Weidenbruck?"
"There seems to be trouble in the direction of the Grass-market," replied Saunders, pointing to a quarter from which distant sounds of shouting were faintly audible. Almost as he spoke, a red glare lit up the heavens with a rosy flickering glow.
"Incendiarism!" muttered old General Bilderbaum, feeling instinctively for his sword.
The King whispered something in General Meyer's ear.
The Commander-in-Chief nodded.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ON THE WARPATH
While Trafford was devouring the enticing viands of the Neptunburg, and listening to the inspiriting conversation of the Frau Generalin von Bilderbaum, a certain captain in the third regiment of Guides was the prey to a whole host of mixed sentiments, divergent ideals, and other troubles of a conscientious egotist. Ulrich von Hügelweiler was sitting in his barrack quarters, smoking hard and thinking harder, and occasionally kicking the legs of the table in an excess of mental indecision.
"I am a loyalist by instinct," he murmured to himself, lighting his fourteenth cigarette. "But to whom? Loyalty is a virtue,—a grand virtue as a rule,—but loyalty to the wrong person is as immoral as worship paid to a false god." And having delivered himself of this platitudinous monologue he kicked another flake of varnish from the leg of his long-suffering table.