CHAPTER XI.

THE RETIREMENT.


After the wedding the Prince and Princess were, from necessity,
drawn within the whirl of social pleasures with attentions in the
way of entertainments, court suppers, balls, drawing-room
receptions, etc. The interior longings were compelled to creep into
the background until the external was gratified to exhaustion. The
Princess' seriousness departed for a time and they were very happy
in the round of pleasures that were planned for them. But as time
sped on they began to grow weary of the show, pomp and shallowness
of external life. The seeds that had been sown in Rathunor's heart
and brain, and that which he had aroused in Nu-nah's slumbering,
spiritual organs of her brain, had taken root and now began to
spring forth into activity, first as weariness of the superficial
pleasures of society, then a desire to gradually withdraw from this
life into a more quiet and secluded one, where they might listen to
the inner voices and gain pleasure, as well as knowledge, from this
source.

The Prince anxiously awaited another opportunity for speaking to
Princess Nu-nah on spiritual subjects. The Hierophant had given him
to understand that at no distant day Nu-nah would become interested
in spiritual things and be his teacher. He had not been made aware
of the transfer--that was to be revealed to him by Nu-nah herself.
He had begun to wonder how and where Nu-nah's spiritual awakening