es.

"What estate is that?" asked the prince. "Who are your neighbours,
duchess?"

"No one less than Zanti, highness," replied the duchess: she shivered,
but tried to jest. "Balthazar Zanti lives here, with his daughter."

"Zanti! Balthazar Zanti!" cried Othomar, in a tone of astonishment.

He stood up and looked curiously at the castle, which lay hidden behind
the chestnut-trees:

"But how is it, duchess, that last year, when I was hunting here with
the emperor, with the duke, I never heard of Prince Zanti or that he
lived here?"

The duchess laughed:

"Presumably, highness, because the duke's covers lie in the opposite
direction"--she made a vague gesture--"and you never drove past this way
and because his majesty will never suffer the name of Balthazar Zanti to
be uttered in his presence."

"But none of the equerries...."

The duchess laughed still more merrily, looked at the prince, who was
also chuckling, and said:

"It is certainly unpardonable of them not to have informed you more
fully of the curiosities in the province of Vaza. But ... now that I
think of it, highness, it's quite natural. The castle was empty last
year: Zanti was travelling about the country, making speeches. You
remember, they were afterwards forbidden by law. His name, therefore,
had no local significance here at the time...."

The prince was still staring at the castle, which never came fully into
view, when the carriage, in a turn of the road, almost touched a little
group as it drove past them, against the slope of a vineyard: an old
man, a young girl, a dog. The girl was frail, slender, pale,
fair-haired, dressed in furs in spite of the sun and retaining beneath
them a certain morbid elegance; she sat on the grass, wearing a dark fur
toque on her silvery fair hair; her long, white hand, ungloved,
soothingly and insistingly patted the curly head of the retriever, which
barked at the carriage. Next to her stood a tall, erect old man, looking
eccentric in a wide, grey smock-frock: a grey giant, with a heavy beard
and sombre eyes, which shone with a dull light from under the brim of a
soft felt hat. The dog barked; the girl bowed--she recognized the
duchess as a neighbour--without knowing who the prince was; the old man,
however, looked straight before him, frowning and making no sign. The
carriage rattled past.

"That was Zanti," whispered the duchess.

"Zanti!" repeated the prince. "And how long has he been living here?"