"No!" thundered I, at last. "Prince, you do your Princess great wrong."
He lifted his hand in a gentle, deprecating way, most unlike the rider who had ridden so fast and so hotly that night of our coming.
"You mistake me, sir," he said. "On the contrary, I have the greatest respect for the Princess Ysolinde. I would not wrong her for the world. But I know her track of old. You are a brave lad, and, after all, I fear there is something in that calf-love of yours—devil take it!"
I thought I could now dimly discern whither the Prince's plans were tending.
"Your Highness," said I, "I am a young man and of little experience. I cannot tell why you have chosen to speak so freely to me. But I am your servant, and, in all that hurts not the essence and matter of my love for the Little Playmate, I will do even as you say."
Prince Karl grasped my hand.
"Ah, well said!" he cried. "You are running your head into a peck of troubles, though. And you are likely to have some experience of womenkind shortly—a thing which does no brisk young fellow any harm, unless he lets them come between him and his career. Women are harmless enough, so that you keep them well down to leeward. I am Baltic-bred, and have ever held to this—that you may sail unscathed through fleets of farthingales, so being that you keep the wind well on your quarter, and see the fair-way clear before you."
I did not at the time understand half he said, but I knew we had made some sort of a bargain. And I thought, with an aching, unsatisfied heart, that though it might be well enough for an iron-gray and cynical old Prince, the thing would hardly commend itself to Helene, my Little Playmate, to whom I had so recently spoken loving words, sweeter than ever before.
"Devil take all Princes and Princesses!" I said, as I thought, to myself.
But I must have spoken aloud, for the Prince laughed.
"Do not waste good prayers needlessly," he said; "he will!"