"Only a very short time: I believe the doctors think the air of Vaza
good for his daughter."

"Was that young girl his daughter?"

"Yes, highness. I have seen her once before; she appears to be
delicate."

"Prince Zanti, is he not?"

"Certainly, highness; but, by his own wish, Zanti quite plain.... Titles
are all nonsense in the nineteenth century, highness."

She jested and yet felt a silent shudder, she knew not why. She thought
it ominous that Zanti had come to live so near to Castel Vaza.
Shivering, she gave a quick side-glance at the prince. She perceived a
strange pensiveness drawing over his face like a shadow. Then, to change
the conversation and to think no longer of that horrid man:

"You are looking much better, highness, than you did this morning. The
air has done you good...."

She suppressed her shiver. The prince, on the other hand, remained
strange: a sudden emotion seemed to be stirring within him. When they
were back at the castle, in the boudoir, the duchess offered herself to
make the prince a cup of tea. He stood looking out of the window at the
deer, but, while she busied herself with the crested, gilt array of her
tea-table, she saw him turn pale, white as chalk--as he had looked that
morning--his eyes dilating strangely:

"What is the matter, highness?" she cried, in alarm, approaching him.

He turned towards her, tried to laugh:

"I beg your pardon, duchess; I am very discourteous ... to behave like
this, but ... but that man took me by surprise." He laughed. "I did not
know that he was here; and then the air ... that rarefied air...."

He put his hand to his forehead; she saw him grow paler, his blood
seemed to be running out of him, he staggered....

"Highness!" she cried.

But Othomar, groping vaguely with his hand for a support, fell up
against her; she caught him in her arm, against her bosom, mortally
frightened, and saw that he had swooned. A thin sweat stood on his
forehead; his eyes closed beneath their weary lids, as though they were
dying away; his mouth was open without breathing.

The duchess was violently alarmed; she was mortally frightened lest
anything serious should happen to the Duke of Xara, alone with her in
the castle; she suddenly felt that the future of Liparia was entrusted
to the support of her arms; she already saw the prince lying dead,
herself disgraced at the Imperial.... All this flashed across her brain
at the first moment. But she looked at him