If Duke Casimir sees a better way of it, why, then the words of his
servant are but as the tunes that the east wind whistles through the
key-hole."

And at the mention of key-holes I imagined that I saw my father's eyes
rest on the latchet crevice. So I bethought me that it was time for me to
be retiring to bed. To my room, therefore, I went straightway, tiptoeing
on the points of my hose. And with ears cocked I heard my father attend
the Duke to the door, and on across the yard, lest any night-wandering
traitor should take a fancy to make a hole in the back of Duke Casimir of
the Wolfmark.

Presently came my father in again, and I heard his foot climb steadily
up to my room. The door opened, and never was I in so deep a sleep. He
turned down the coverlet to see that I was undressed--but that I had seen
to. Whereat he departed fully satisfied.

Nevertheless this interview left me with a great feeling of insecurity.
If the Duke Casimir were thus full of fears, doubts, misgivings, whence
came the fierce and cruel courage with which he dominated his liege
burghers and harassed the country round about for a hundred leagues? The
cunning of a weak man? Say, rather, the contrivance of a strong servant
to hide the frailty of a weak master.

Then first it was that I saw that my father Gottfried Gottfried was the
true ruler of the Wolfmark, and that the man who had carried me on his
shoulders and played with the little Helene was--at least, so long as
Duke Casimir lived--the greatest man in all the Dukedom and first
Councillor of State, whether the matter were one of peasant or Kaiser.