"Lady Ysolinde, I cannot accept your too overpowering favor," said
Helene, after a pause, "but your kindness in thinking at all of me will
always warm my heart."

At this critical moment came my father in, looking more than grave and
severe, so that I judged at once that he had been talking to the Duke
Casimir and had found his post of chief adviser both thankless and
difficult. I knew it could be no matter of his office which worried him,
for that day he wore his holiday attire of white Friesland cloth, and the
broad bonnet in which I loved best to see him. There was no mark of his
calling about him anywhere, save a little Red Axe sewed upon his left
breast like a war veteran's decoration.




CHAPTER XVII

THE RED AXE IS LEFT ALONE


Gottfried Gottfried bowed to the guest of his house with the noble manner
which comes to every serious-minded man who deals habitually in the high
matters of life and death. I made his introductions to the Lady Ysolinde,
and as readily and gracefully he returned his acknowledgments. For the
rest I allowed Master Gerard's daughter to develop her own projects to
him, which, indeed, she was no long time in doing.

As she proceeded I saw my father change color and become as to his face
almost as white as the Friesland cloth in which he was dressed.