rapid movement. In the other room, under a
lamp of draped lace, Othomar and General Ducardi and the Gothlandic
equerries are attentively engaged in studying on an accurately detailed
ordnance-map the route which they are to follow to-morrow on horseback to
the inundated villages. The steward and a footman go round with coffee
and liqueurs.

When the game of billiards is over, the duchess comes into the next room
with her gentlemen, laughing merrily. The prince and his officers look
up, politely smiling, from their map, but she, bewitchingly:

"Oh, don't let me disturb you, highness!..."

She takes Dutri's arm for a stroll on the terrace outside. The doors are
open, the weather is delicious: it is a little cool. The steward hangs a
fur cloak over her bare shoulders. On the long terrace outside she walks
with Dutri to and fro, to and fro, constantly passing the open doors and
as constantly throwing a glance to the group under the lamp: bent heads
and fingers that point with a pencil. Her step is light on the arm of
the elegant equerry; her train rustles gaily behind her. She talks
vivaciously, asks Dutri:

"How are you enjoying your tour?"

"Bored to death! Nothing and nobody amusing, except the primate's
secretary!... Those Gothlanders are bores and so terribly provincial!
And it's tiring too, all this toiling about! You see, I look upon it as
war and so I manage to carry on; if I were to look upon it as times of
peace, I should never pull through. Fortunately our reception has been
tolerably decent everywhere. Oh, there is no doubt the crown-prince is
making himself popular...."

"A nice boy," she says, interrupting him. "I had hardly seen him for a
long time since, when he was studying at Altara; after that I only
remember seeing him once or twice at the Imperial, shot up from a child
like an asparagus-stalk and yet a mere lad. I remember it still: he
flushed when I curtseyed to him. Then again lately, at Myxila's...."

Dutri is very familiar with the duchess: he calls her by her Christian
name, he always flirts with her a little, to amuse himself, from
swagger, without receiving any further favours; they know each other too
well, they have been in each other's confidence too long and she looks
upon him more as a _cavaliere servente_ for trifling services and little
court intrigues than as one for whom she could ever feel any sort of
"emotion."

"_Ma chere Alexa_, take care!" says he, wagging his finger at he