his horse and ride away slowly, with his head bent and his eyes
downcast; yet he was a noble gentleman, stately and handsome, kind and
true. The tears came suddenly into her eyes and blurred her sight as
she leant watching from behind the hanging curtains of the window.
Though she dashed them angrily away, they came again, and ran down her
pale, cold cheeks, mourning the golden vision that seemed gone without
fulfilment.

That evening there came a gentleman from the Prince of Glottenberg,
carrying most humble excuses from his master, who (so he said) was
prevented from waiting on the princess the next day by a certain very
urgent affair that took him from Strelsau, and would keep him absent
from the city all day long; and the gentleman delivered to Osra a
letter from the prince, full of graceful and profound apologies, and
pleading an engagement that his honor would not let him break; for
nothing short of that, said he, should have kept him from her side.
There followed some lover's phrases, scantily worded, and frigid in an
assumed passion. But Osra smiled graciously, and sent back a message,
readily accepting all that the prince urged in excuse. And she told
what had passed to the king, with her head high in the air, and a
careless haughtiness, so that even the king did not rally her, nor yet
venture to comfort her, but urged her to spend the next day in riding
with the queen and him; for they were setting out for Zenda, where the
king was to hunt in the forest, and she could ride some part of the
way with them, and return in the evening. And she, wishing that she
had sent first to the prince, to bid him not come, agreed to go with
her brother; it was better far to go than to wait at home for a lover
who would not come.

Thus, the next morning, they rode out, the king and queen with their