the sovereign toward the
singers, who were summoning the whole world to pay homage to yonder
broken-down man, as though he were a demigod.

A bitter smile hovered around her lips as she did so, but it vanished
as swiftly as it had come; for when she again fixed her eyes upon the
monarch, she would gladly have joined in the mighty hymn. As if by a
miracle, he had become an entirely different person. Now he stood before
the throne in the full loftiness and dignity of commanding majesty. A
purple mantle fell from his shoulders, and the Duke of Alba was placing
the crown on his head instead of the velvet cap.

Oh, no, she need not be ashamed of having loved this man, and she was
not; for she loved him still, and was fully and joyously aware that
whatever he suffered, whatever tortured and prematurely aged the man
still in his fourth decade, no one on earth equalled him in intellect
and grandeur.

And as pages then placed the velvet cushions on the carpet; as the Duke
of Parma, the gonfaloniere on whose head rested the blessing of
the representative of Christ, bent the knee before his imperial
father-in-law, and the proud Alba and the other Knights of the Golden
Fleece who were present did the same; as Charles, the grand master of
the order, took from the cushion the symbol of honour which Count Henry
of Nassau handed to him, and placed the golden sheepskin with the red
ribbon around Duke Ottavio's neck, while the plaudits, the ringing of
bells, and the thunder of the artillery echoed more loudly than ever
from the stone walls of the courtyard, tears filled Barbara's eyes
and, as when the Emperor passed at the head of the bridal procession in
Prebrunn, her voice again blended with the enthusiastic shouts of homage
to the man standing in majestic repose before the throne, the man who
was the most exalted of human beings.

She understood only a few words of the brief speech which the monarch
addressed to the new Knight of the Golden Fleece. She saw for the first
time the dignitaries of so many different nations upon whom she was
gazing down, and most of whom she did not even know by name. But what
did she care how they were called and who they were? Her eyes were fixed
only on Charles and the young man in the armour artistically inlaid with
gold, peach-coloured silver brocade, and white silk, who was kneeling
before him.

Suppose that a son of hers should be permitted to share such an honour;
suppose that Charles should