'You did not expect to see me?' he said, nodding grimly.
'No, my lord,' I answered.
'So I thought,' he rejoined. 'But before you give the Count that letter, I have a word to say to him.'
I looked at him in astonishment. What had the letter to do with him? My first idea was that he had been drinking, for his colour was high and his eye bright. But a second glance showed that he was sober, though excited. And while I hesitated the trooper held up the curtain, and perforce I marched in.
Count Leuchtenstein, wearing his plain buff suit, sat writing at a table. His corselet, steel cap, and gauntlets lay beside him, and seemed to show that he had just come in from the field. He looked up and nodded to me; I had been announced before. Then he saw the Waldgrave and rose; reluctantly, I fancied. I thought, too, that a shade of gloom fell on his face; but as the table was laden with papers and despatches and maps and lists, and the sight reminded me that he bore on his shoulders all the affairs of Hesse, and the responsibility for the boldest course taken by any German prince in these troubles, I reflected that this might arise from a hundred causes.
He greeted the Waldgrave civilly nevertheless; then he turned to me. 'You have a letter for me, have you not, my friend?' he said.
'Yes, my lord,' I answered.
'But,' the Waldgrave interposed, 'before you read it, I have a word to say, by your leave, Count Leuchtenstein.'
I think I never saw a man more astonished than the Count. 'To me?' he said.
'By your leave, yes.'