ys make the other unhappy? Why need
princes make their people unhappy? Will life always remain the same, for
ages and ages?..."

Othomar sank into a heap on the couch; his hand fell on the dog, which
licked it passionately.

"Oh!" he sobbed. "My people, my people!..."

* * * * *

At this moment the last carriages were driving away in the fore-court of
the Imperial; the staring crowd, behind the grenadiers, peeped curiously
at the pretty ladies glistening through the glass of the state-coaches.
The Duchess of Yemena's carriage came last of all.

4

A spirit of gloom seemed to haunt the ringing marble halls of the
Imperial, a dim melancholy to stifle the cadences of the voices and
their echoes and to hang from the tall ceilings as it had been a heavy
web of atmosphere. It was autumn; the first parties were to take place;
the first court-ball was given. But it seemed to be given because there
was no help for it: it was a slow, official, tedious function. The more
intimate circles of the Imperial, those of the Duchess of Yemena and the
diplomatic body, regretted the more select assemblies in the smaller
rooms of the empress. They looked upon those great balls as necessary
inflictions. The empress' smaller dances, however, were always favoured
as most charming entertainments. But the empress had decided that they
should not take place, because of the illness of the crown-prince. At
this first great ball their majesties appeared only for a brief moment,
to take part in the imperial quadrille....

Grey ashes fell over the glittering mood of imperial festivity which so
short a time ago had been the usual atmosphere of the palace. The
dinners, once the glories of day after day, were shortened; only the
most necessary invitations were given. The emperor himself maintained a
constant mood of sullenness: the army bill for the augmentation of the
active forces was still attacked in principle in the house of deputies;
and the emperor was resolved at all costs to uphold his minister of war.
Moreover, thanks to the dash of childishness that showed through all his
energy, he had not recovered from his disappointment at the postponement
of the Duke of Xara's marriage. He seemed in a continual state of
irritation because his Liparian world would not go as he wanted it to
go.

Neither the empress nor the prince himself thought it a favourable
moment to communicate the mournful resolution to the