hough his Highness felt it to be
so, for he repeatedly endeavoured to address his spouse over this
battlemented shoulder; but her Highness answered shortly, if at all, and
the shoulder became each time more aggressively pointed.

The musicians meanwhile performed a series of madrigals accompanied by
viole d'amore, violins, and viole da gamba. The candles flickered in the
draught from the open windows. Madame de Ruth sat resignedly beside
Monseigneur de Zollern, whose fine head had dropped forward on his
breast. He was asleep; and Madame de Ruth realised, with a sigh, that her
beloved had grown old; that her youth had vanished too, and even the joy
of observing the tragi-comedy of human nature palled for her at that
moment, and she felt herself to be old and lonely. At length the music
ceased, and was followed by that insolent, half-hearted applause which it
is the privilege of the truly cultured audience to offer to musicians or
actors.

Her Highness intimated her approval, and desired the performers to rest a
little after their exertions. At this moment a door, directly to the left
of her Highness's seat, was flung open, and a bewildering vision of
beauty stood framed in the doorway. It was Wilhelmine von Graevenitz, the
expressly excluded foreign visitor. Johanna Elizabetha threw a glance
towards this apparition and hastily averted her eyes, her face flaming
from throat to brow.

His Highness half rose from his seat, but sinking back he endeavoured to
attract the Duchess's attention to the late arrival, who stood on the
threshold awaiting her Highness's greeting, without which it was
impossible for her to join the court circle, as having entered by the
wrong door, she must of necessity pass the Duchess in order to gain the
ranks of the audience. There was a moment of intense embarrassment;
Wilhelmine was as firmly fixed to her place in the doorway as though
nails had been fastened through her satin-slippered feet to the boards
beneath; for etiquette forbade her to advance without her Highness's
greeting, and fear of ridicule barred her way back through the door. The
Duchess remained immovable, her eyes upon the group of musicians; the
Duke endeavoured nervously to draw her Highness's attention to
Wilhelmine; the audience had fallen into one of those painful silences,
with which an assembly invariably adds to the awkward moments of social
life. Partly it is that curiosity rules all men and most women; partly
that, h