Niburg was fond of sweet champagne.

Peter Niburg pushed his hat to the back of his head, and hung his stick
over his forearm. After all, why not? Marie was gone. Let the past die.
If Herman could make the first move, let him, Peter, make the second. He
linked arms with his old enemy.

"A fine night," he said.

CHAPTER X. THE RIGHT TO LIVE AND LOVE

Dinner was over in the dull old dining-room. The Archduchess Annunciata
lighted a cigarette, and glanced across the table at Hedwig.

Hedwig had been very silent during the meal. She had replied civilly
when spoken to, but that was all. Her mother, who had caught the
Countess's trick of narrowing her eyes, inspected her from under lowered
lids.

"Well?" she said. "Are you still sulky?"

"I? Not at all, mother." Her head went up, and she confronted her mother
squarely.

"I should like to inquire, if I may," observed the Archduchess, "just
how you have spent the day until the little divertissement on which I
stumbled. This morning, for instance?"

Hedwig shrugged her shoulders, but her color rose. It came in a soft
wave over her neck and mounted higher and higher. "Very quietly,
mother," she said.

"Naturally. It is always quiet here. But how?"

"I rode."

"Where?"

"At the riding-school, with Otto."

"Only with Otto?"

"Captain Larisch was there."

"Of course! Then you have practically spent the day with him!"

"I have spent most of the day with Otto."

"This devotion to Otto--it is new, I think. You were eager to get out of
the nursery. Now, it appears, you must fly back to schoolroom teas and
other absurdities. I should like to know why."

"I think Otto is lonely, mother."

Hilda took advantage of her mother's preoccupation to select another
peach. She was permitted only one, being of the age when fruit caused
her, colloquially speaking, to "break out." She was only faintly
interested in the conversation. She dreaded these family meals, with her
mother's sharp voice and the Countess Loschek's almost too soft one. But
now a restrained irritability in the tones of the Archduchess made her
glance up. The Archduchess was in one of her sudden moods of irritation.
Hedwig's remark about Otto's loneliness, the second that day, struck
home. In her anger she forgot her refusal to the Chancellor.

"I have something to say that will put an end to this sentimental
nonsense of yours, Hedwig. I should forbid your seeing this boy, this
young Larisch, if