eaction came on me. In a sudden
moment a new resolve entered my head; again Varvilliers roused the
impulse that he had power to rouse in me. I would make trial of this
mode of living and test this colour of mind. I had been thinking about
life when I might have been exulting in it. I ran forward to the group,
and, as they parted to let me through, I came quickly to Varvilliers
with outstretched hands. He seemed to me a good genius. Even my mother
looked smiling and happy. The faces of the rest were alight with gaiety.
Victoria was in the full tide of a happy laugh, and did not interrupt it
on account of my arrival. Elsa's lips were parted in a smile that was
eager and wondering. Her eyes sparkled; she clasped her hands and nodded
to me in a delicious surprised merriment. I caught Varvilliers by the
arm and made him sit by me. A cry arose that he should repeat the last
story for the King's benefit. He complied at once, and launched on some
charming absurdity. Renewed applause greeted the story's point. A
rivalry arose who should cap it with a better. The contact of brains
struck sparks. Every man was wittier than his wont; every woman more
radiant. What the plague had I and Wetter been grumbling and snarling at
down there on the river?

The impulse lasted the evening out. After dinner we fell to dancing in
the long room that faced the gardens. My mother and the Duchess retired
early, but the rest of us set the hours at defiance and revelled far on
into the night. It was as though a new spirit had come to Artenberg; the
very servants wore broad grins as they bustled about, seeming to declare
that here at last was something like what a youthful king's court should
be. William Adolphus was boisterous, Victoria forgot that she was
learned and a patroness of the arts, Elsa threw herself into the fun
with the zest and abandonment of a child. I vied with Varvilliers
himself, seeking to wrest from him the title of master of the revels. He
could not stand against me. A madman may be stronger than the finest
athlete. No native temper could vie with my foreign mood.

Suddenly I knew that I could do to-night what I had vainly tried to do;
that to-night, for to-night at least, I felt something of what I desired
to feel. The blood ran free in my veins; if I did not love her, yet I
loved love, and for love's sake would love Elsa. If to-night the barrier
between us could be broken down, it need never rise again; the vision,
so impossib