The Princess Hedwig had been blushing uncomfortably, but now she
paled. "He dared to say that?" she stormed. "He dared!" And she
had picked up her muff and gone out in a fine temper.

Only - and this was curious - by the next day she had forgiven
the lieutenant, and was angry at Ferdinand William Otto. Women
are very strange.

So now Ferdinand William Otto ran his fingers through his fair
hair; which was a favorite gesture of the lieutenant's, and
Hedwig blushed. After that she refused to look across at him,
but sat staring fixedly at the stage, where Frau Hugli, in a
short skirt, a black velvet bodice, and a white apron, with two
yellow braids over her shoulders, was listening with all the
coyness of forty years and six children at home to the
love-making of a man in a false black beard.

The Archduchess, sitting well back, was nodding. Just outside
the royal box, on the red-velvet sofa, General Mettlich, who was
the Chancellor, and had come because he had been invited and
stayed outside because he said he liked to hear music, not see
it, was sound asleep. His martial bosom, with its gold braid,
was rising and falling peacefully. Beside him lay the Prince's
crown, a small black derby hat.

The Princess Hilda looked across, and smiled and nodded at
Ferdinand William Otto. Then she went back to the music; she
held the score in her hand and followed it note by note. She was
studying music, and her mother, who was the Archduchess, was
watching her. But now and then, when her mother's eyes were