invited to the General's
table at noon, though not to meet any other officer. General Schoneck
agreed with Weisspriess that Hungary would be a better field for
Wilfrid; said he would do his utmost to serve them in the manner they
wished, and dismissed them after the second cigar. They strolled about
the city, glad for reasons of their own to be out of Milan as long as
the leave permitted. At night, when they were passing a palace in one
of the dark streets, a feather, accompanied by a sharp sibilation from
above, dropped on Wilfrid's face. Weisspriess held the feather up, and
judged by its length that it was an eagle's, and therefore belonging to
the Hungarian Hussar regiment stationed in Milan. "The bird's aloft," he
remarked. His voice aroused a noise of feet that was instantly still.
He sent a glance at the doorways, where he thought he discerned men.
Fetching a whistle in with his breath, he unsheathed his sword, and
seeing that Wilfrid had no weapon, he pushed him to a gate of the
palace-court that had just cautiously turned a hinge. Wilfrid found his
hand taken by a woman's hand inside. The gate closed behind him. He was
led up to an apartment where, by the light of a darkly-veiled lamp,
he beheld a young Hungarian officer and a lady clinging to his neck,
praying him not to go forth. Her Italian speech revealed how matters
stood in this house. The officer accosted Wilfrid: "But you are not one
of us!" He repeated it to the lady: "You see, the man is not one of us!"

She assured him that she had seen the uniform when she dropped the
feather, and wept protesting it.

"Louis, Louis! why did you come to-night! why did I make you come! You
will be slain. I had my warning, but I was mad."

The officer hushed her with a quick squeeze of her inter-twisted
fingers.

"Are you the man to take a sword and be at my back, sir?" he said;
and resumed in a manner less contemptuous toward the civil costume: "I
request it for the sole purpose of quieting this lady's fears."

Wilfrid explained who and what he was. On hearing that he was General
Pierson's nephew the officer laughed cheerfully, and lifted the veil
from the lamp, by which Wilfrid knew him to be Colonel Prince Radocky,
a most gallant and the handsomest cavalier in the Imperial service.
Radocky laughed again when he was told of Weisspriess keeping guard
below.

"Aha! we are three, and can fight like a pyramid."

He flourished his hand above the lady's head, and c