ell in behind
her, and the little procession moved to the stuffy, boudoir, for coffee.
But Hilda slipped her arm around her sister's waist, and the touch
comforted Hedwig.

"He may be very nice," Hilda volunteered cautiously. "Perhaps it is
Karl. I am quite mad about Karl, myself."

Hedwig, however, was beyond listening. She went slowly to a window, and
stood gazing out. Looming against the sky-line, in the very center of
the Place, was the heroic figure of her dead grandmother. She fell to
wondering about these royal women who had preceded her. Her mother,
frankly unhappy in her marriage, permanently embittered; her
grandmother. Hedwig had never seen the King young. She could not picture
him as a lover. To her he was a fine and lonely figure. But romantic?
Had he ever been romantic?

He had made her mother's marriage, and had lived to regret it. He would
make hers. But what about the time when he himself had taken a wife?
Hedwig gazed at the statue. Had she too come with unwilling arms? And if
she had, was it true that after all, in a year or a lifetime, it made no
difference.

She slipped out on to the balcony and closed the curtains behind her. As
her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she saw that there was some
one below, under the trees. Her heart beat rapidly. In a moment she was
certain. It was Nikky down there, Nikky, gazing up at her as a child
may look at a star. With a quick gesture Hedwig drew the curtain back.
A thin ray of light fell on her, on her slim bare arms, on her light
draperies, on her young face. He had wanted to see her, and he should
see her. Then she dropped the curtain, and twisted her hands together
lest, in spite of her, they reach out toward him.

Did she fancy it, or did the figure salute her? Then came the quick ring
of heels on the old stone pavement. She knew his footsteps, even as she
knew every vibrant, eager inflection of his voice. He went away, across
the Square, like one who, having bent his knee to a saint, turns back to
the business of the world.

In the boudoir the Archduchess had picked up some knitting to soothe her
jangled nerves. "You may play now, Hilda," she said.

Into Hilda's care-free young life came two bad hours each day. One was
the dinner hour, when she ate under her mother's pitiless eyes. The
other was the hour after dinner, when, alone in the white drawing-room
beyond the boudoir, with the sliding doors open, she sat at the grand
piano, which was wh