"That he will!" promptly assented Herr Bernat. "I am not only the vice-palatine of your county: I am also the colonel of your regiment."
"And I want you to add still another office to the two you fill so admirably: that of matrimonial emissary!" added Count Vavel. "In this patriarchal land I find that the custom still obtains of sending an emissary to the lady one desires to marry. Will you, Herr Vice-palatine and Colonel, undertake this mission for me?"
"Of all my missions this will be the most agreeable!" heartily responded Herr Bernat.
"You know to whom I would have you go," resumed the count. "It is not far from here. You know who the lady is without my repeating her name. Go to her, tell her what you have seen and heard here,—I send her my secret as a betrothal gift,—and then ask her to send me an answer to the words she heard me speak on a certain eventful occasion."
"You may trust me!" with alacrity responded Herr Bernat. "Within half an hour I shall return with a reply: Veni, vidi, vici!"
After he had shaken hands with his client, the worthy emissary remembered that it was becoming for even so important a personage as a Hungarian vice-palatine to show some respect to the distinguished young lady under Count Vavel's protection. He therefore turned toward her, brought his spurred heels together, and was on the point of making a suitable speech, accompanying it with a deep bow, when the young lady frustrated his ceremonious design by coming quickly toward him and saying in her frank, girlish manner:
"He who goes on a matrimonial mission must wear a nosegay." With these words she drew the violets from her corsage, and fastened them in Herr Bernat's buttonhole.
Hereupon the gallant vice-palatine forgot his ceremonious intentions. He seized the maid's hand, pressed it against his stiffly waxed mustache, and muttered, with a wary glance toward Count Vavel: "I am sorry this pretty little hand belongs to those messieurs Frenchmen!"
Then he quitted the room, and in descending the stairs had all he could do to transfer without dropping them the coins from his hat to the pockets of his dolman.
Marie skipped, singing joyously, into the dining-room, where the windows faced toward the neighboring manor. She did not ask if she might do so, but flung open the sash, leaned far out, and waved her handkerchief to the vice-palatine, who was driving swiftly across the causeway.