ble beauty, seeming to me the embodiment of perfect
accomplishment. I saluted her with marked graciousness; fifty heads
turned instantly from me toward her. She blushed very slightly and
curtseyed very low. Sempach murmured gratification; Hammerfeldt smiled.
I was vaguely conscious of a subdued sensation running all through the
company, but my mind was occupied with the contrast between this
finished woman and the little girl I had left behind. From feeling old,
too old, sad, and knowing for poor little Elsa, I was suddenly
transported into an oppressive consciousness of youth and rawness.
Involuntarily I drew myself up to my full height and assumed the best
air of dignity that was at my command. So posed, I crossed the station
to my carriage between Hammerfeldt and Vohrenlorf.

"Your time has not been wasted," old Hammerfeldt whispered to me. "You
are ready now to take up what I am more than ready to lay down."

I started slightly; I had for the moment forgotten that the Council of
Regency was now discharged of its office, and that I was to assume the
full burden of my responsibilities. I had looked forward to this time
with eagerness and ambition. But a man's emotions at a given moment are
very seldom what he has expected them to be. Some foreign thought
intrudes and predominates; something accidental supplants what has
seemed so appropriate and certain. While I travelled down to Artenberg
that evening, with Vohrenlorf opposite to me (Vohrenlorf who himself was
about to lay down his functions), the assumption of full power was not
what occupied my mind. I was engrossed with thoughts of Elsa, with
fancies about my Countess, with strange dim speculations that touched
me--the young man, not the king about whom all the coil was. Had I been
called upon to condense those vague meditations and emotions into a
sentence, I would have borrowed what Vohrenlorf had said to me when we
were with the Bartensteins. He did not often hit the nail exactly on
the head, but just now I could give no better summary of all I felt than
his soberly optimistic reminder: "Ah, well, even if it should be so, you
have six years!"

The thought that I treasured on the way to Artenberg that evening was
the thought of my six years.

CHAPTER IX.

JUST WHAT WOULD HAPPEN.

Soon after my return my mother and I went into residence at Forstadt. My
time was divided between mastering my public duties under Hammerfeldt's
tuition, and playing a pr