"Come in!" he exclaimed. Baron von Keudell entered. The minister nodded to him with a smile.
"What brings you here, dear Keudell?" he asked, laying aside a paper which he had just looked through, "has anything happened?"
"Something decidedly strange has happened, your excellency, which I must at once impart to you. Monsieur Hansen is here, and has just been with me."
"Hansen, the Danish agitator?" asked Bismarck.
"The same," said Keudell, "only this time he is not the Danish agitator, but the French agent."
A cloud gathered on Count Bismarck's brow.
"What do they still want in Paris?" he cried. "Are they not yet satisfied? Benedetti must have understood me perfectly."
"I think they wish to make one more secret effort," said von Keudell. "I beg you to hear Monsieur Hansen yourself, he is to a certain extent accredited by Drouyn de Lhuys, and he can really tell us much that it interests us to know."
"Drouyn de Lhuys is no longer minister," said Count Bismarck.
"He has resigned, certainly," replied Keudell, "and Lavalette is in his place until Moustier arrives, but his credentials prove that Hansen has something to propose, which is not to follow the usual course of diplomacy until it is known how we shall receive it."