himself. He remembered the exact place, where, as he mounted the stairs,
he had heard something drop, but had paid no attention to it at the
time. He would go and find it, and then return to the platform. And
with a bow he left them.

Egon, under other circumstances, would have expressed his surprise that
Hartmut did not accept the old watchman's offer, instead of going
himself. But now he saw his friend depart without protest; he was not
unwilling to have the field to himself. The baroness had already raised
the glass to her eyes, and was following attentively his explanations
and comments on the surrounding country.

"And over yonder, behind that mountain of forest, lies Rodeck," he said
at last. "The little hunting lodge where we two misanthropes live like
hermits, cut off from all the world beside, save the apes and parrots
which we brought from the East, and they, by the way, are growing very
melancholy in their new home."

"One would never take your highness for a misanthrope," said Frau von
Wallmoden with a fleeting smile.

"I confess I haven't much taste for it, myself, but once in a while
Hartmut has a touch of the disease, and it is for his sake that I have
buried myself in this solitude."

"Hartmut? That is a Hungarian name! It's very surprising that Herr
Rojanow speaks such pure German without the slightest accent. And yet he
told me he was a foreigner."

"Yes, he is from Roumania, but he was educated, partially at least, by