"I would I were to be nearer Vienna than Magdeburg!" said Nigel. "But I have promised. And your Highness is not an Infanta of Spain to be bartered here or there for an article in a treaty."
"So you think!" she said, evidently pleased. "But we women are all alike in one thing, we are all fatalists, like the Grand Turk."
"I have been very desirous of asking your Highness a question," said Nigel, drawing the little dagger from his belt and holding it so that she could see the hilt. "Whose arms are those?"
"Habsburg," she said. "How came you by it?"
"In Magdeburg a lady tried to stab me with it."
As her fingers closed round the hilt Nigel seemed to see the hand again just as he saw it and grasped it at Magdeburg.
"I wonder whether it was my cousin Ottilie von Thüringen," she said. "She is suspected of strong sympathies for the Lutherans."
"Does she resemble your Highness in person?"
"Yes! She did as a girl! There is a coldness between the families and we do not meet as we used. Some say she is singularly like me. Her mother was sister to mine! I remember myself giving her this dagger for a gift. 'Tis very strange it should come into your hands and your eyes say that you wish it back in your own keeping. Colonel Nigel! I shall be jealous if you love my cousin Ottilie! It is the way of princesses!"