f Xardi, about the person of his majesty the
emperor, the Duke of Xara's most gracious father, prevent them from
being there to receive their beloved crown-prince in their castle, but
that they beg his imperial highness to look upon the house as his. The
prince reads the telegram and hands it to his aide-de-camp, the Count of
Thesbia. Then, conducted by the chamberlain, he ascends the steps and
enters the hall.

Notwithstanding that it is still daylight outside, the hall is
brilliantly lighted and resembles a forest full of palm-trees and
broad-leaved ornamental plants. The duchess steps towards the
crown-prince and breaks the line of her graciousness in a deep curtsey.
He has seen her bow like this before. But perhaps she is still handsomer
in this plain black velvet gown and Venetian lace, cut very low, her
splendid bosom exposed, white with the grain of Carrara marble, her
statuesque arms bare, a heavy train behind her like a wave of ink; a
small ducal coronet of brilliants and emeralds in her hair, which is
also black, with a gold-blue raven's glow.

She bids the princes welcome. Othomar offers her his arm. Prince Herman
and the equerries follow them up the colossal staircase, through the
hedge of flunkeys, who stand motionless with fixed eyes that do not seem
to see. Then through a row of lighted rooms and galleries to a great
reception-room, glittering with light from the costly rock-crystal
chandelier, in which the candle-light coruscates and casts expansive
gleams and shimmers over the marble mosaic of the floor and along the
decorative mirrors, in their frames of heavy Louis-XV. arabesques, and
the paintings by renascence masters on the walls.

A momentary standing reception is held, a miniature court: in their
dazzling uniforms--for it was a delightful, though long drive from Vaza
and the men had had time to change into their full-dress uniforms in the
town--the equerries and aides come, one after the other, to kiss the
duchess' hand; except the Gothlandic officers, she knows them all,
nearly all intimately; she is able to speak an almost familiar word to
each of them, while the gold of her voice melts between her laughing
lips and her great, Egyptian eyes look out, strangely dreaming. So she
stands for a moment as a most adorable hostess between the two princes,
she, a woman, alone among these officers who surround them, in the midst
of a cross-fire of compliments and badinage that sparkles around them
all