terpret. The language was known to
me; the irony was after my own heart.

"It's dashed queer stuff," said William Adolphus, scratching his head.
"All right in a story book, you know; but in the Chamber! Do you think
he's off his head?"

"I don't think so, William Adolphus," said I.

"Victoria says it's hardly--hardly decent, you know."

"I shouldn't call it exactly indecent."

"No, not exactly indecent," he admitted. "But what the devil did he want
to say it there for?"

"Ah, that I can't answer."

My brother-in-law looked discontented. Yet as a rule he resigned himself
readily enough to not understanding things.

"Victoria says that Princess Heinrich requested the Duchess to manage
that Elsa----"

"My dear William Adolphus, the transaction sounds complicated."

"Complicated? What do you mean? Princess Heinrich requested the Duchess
not to let Elsa read it."

"Ah, my mother has always good reasons."

"But Elsa had read it already."

"How unfortunate wisdom always is! Did Elsa like it?"

"She told Victoria that it seemed great nonsense."

"Yes, she would think so."

"Well, it is, you know," said William Adolphus.

"Of course it is, my dear fellow," said I.

Yet I wanted to know more about it, and observing that Varvilliers was
stated to have been present in the Diplomatic Gallery, I sent for him to
come to Artenberg and describe the speech as it actually passed. When I
had sent my message I went forth in search of my _fiancee_. She had read
the report already; my mother's measures had been taken too late. What
did pretty Elsa think? She thought it was all great nonsense. Poor
pretty Elsa!

My heart was hungry. Wetter had broken--as surely he had meant to
break--the sleep of memory and the sense of contrast. I went to her not
with love, but with some vague expectation, a sort of idea that,
contrary to all likelihood, I might again have in some measure what had
come to me before, springing now indeed not whence I would, but whence
it could, yet being still itself though grown in an alien soil. The
full richness of native bloom it could not win, yet it might attain some
pale grace and a fragrance of its own. For these I would compound and
thank the malicious wit that gave them me. But she thought it all great
nonsense; nay, that was only what she had told Victoria. My mother was
wise, and my mother had requested that she should not read it.

When I came to her she was uncertain and doubtful in mood