"I wish you," he added thoughtfully, "to draw me another chart, and to once more try if the numbers promise good luck or ill."
"Nay," replied Vanderlinden hastily, "I have done all that is possible, Highness; it is but folly to again and again search for an answer to the same question. By no method I tried did I get a result—therefore this marriage will mean confusion, or else the future of it is hid from us."
The Elector was not satisfied with this ambiguous answer; he wanted a definite reply from his oracles, a direct announcement from the fates.
He sat a little while gloomily, his blunt-featured face overcast, meanwhile the alchemist standing patiently before him, fingering the flat black cap.
"You know well enough," remarked the Prince at length, "that if I could send some well-tested augury, some pleasant prophecy to the Landgrave of Hesse, it might overcome some of the bitterness of his opposition."
Vanderlinden doubted this; he had himself been sent as an envoy to Cassel with the mission of trying to persuade the old Landgrave to give his consent to this marriage that was so near the Elector's heart, and he had found Philip of Hesse extremely determined and not a little bigoted.
He ventured to say as much.
"I know," replied the Elector. "He has indeed made such a sturdy opposition that I have been tempted to wish him taken to his rest this last year."
"But why does Your Highness still trouble about the obstinacy of the Landgrave Philip when you have decided on the wedding, when the very cakes are being baked, the dresses made, and the groom is already on the road?" asked the alchemist wearily.
"I trouble," said His Highness, "because all the responsibility is mine, and it is no light responsibility to wed the daughter of the Elector Maurice to a Papist Prince."