broken-down man, as though he were a demigod.

A bitter smile hovered around her lips as she did so, but it vanished as
swiftly as it had come; for when she again fixed her eyes upon the
monarch, she would gladly have joined in the mighty hymn. As if by a
miracle, he had become an entirely different person. Now he stood before
the throne in the full loftiness and dignity of commanding majesty. A
purple mantle fell from his shoulders, and the Duke of Alba was placing
the crown on his head instead of the velvet cap.

Oh, no, she need not be ashamed of having loved this man, and she was
not; for she loved him still, and was fully and joyously aware that
whatever he suffered, whatever tortured and prematurely aged the man
still in his fourth decade, no one on earth equalled him in intellect
and grandeur.

And as pages then placed the velvet cushions on the carpet; as the Duke
of Parma, the gonfaloniere on whose head rested the blessing of the
representative of Christ, bent the knee before his imperial father-in-
law, and the proud Alba and the other Knights of the Golden Fleece who
were present did the same; as Charles, the grand master of the order,
took from the cushion the symbol of honour which Count Henry of Nassau
handed to him, and placed the golden sheepskin with the red ribbon around
Duke Ottavio's neck, while the plaudits, the ringing of bells, and the
thunder of the artillery echoed more loudly than ever from the stone
walls of the courtyard, tears filled Barbara's eyes and, as when the
Emperor passed at the head of the bridal procession in Prebrunn, her
voice again blended with the enthusiastic shouts of homage to the man
standing in majestic repose before the throne, the man who was the most
exalted of human beings.