ar. Times are, indeed, changed when we must ask a woman to save us!"

She had thrown her arms over the bed and buried her face in them. "And I
am to be sacrificed," she had said, in a flat voice. "I am to go through
my life like mother, soured and unhappy. Without any love at all."

The King was stirred. His thin, old body had sunk in the bed until it
seemed no body at all. "Why without love?" he asked, almost gently.
"Karl knows our condition--not all of it, but he is well aware that
things are unstable here. Yet he is eager for the marriage. I am
inclined to believe that he follows his inclinations, rather than a
political policy."

The thought that Karl might love her had not entered her mind. That made
things worse, if anything--a situation unfair to him and horrible to
herself. In the silence of her own room, afterward, she pondered
over that. If it were true, then a certain hope she had must be
relinquished--none other than to throw herself on his mercy, and beg for
a nominal marriage, one that would satisfy the political alliance, but
leave both of them free. Horror filled her. She sat for long periods,
dry-eyed and rigid.

The bronze statue of the late Queen, in the Place, fascinated her in
those days. She, too, had been only a pawn in the game of empires; but
her face, as Hedwig remembered it, had been calm and without bitterness.
The King had mourned her sincerely. What lay behind that placid, rather
austere old face? Dead dreams? Or were the others right, that after a
time it made no difference, that one marriage was the same as another?

She had not seen Nikky save once or twice, and that in the presence of
others. On these occasions he had bowed low, and passed on. But once she
had caught his eyes on her, and had glowed for hours at what she saw in
them. It braced her somewhat for the impending ordeal of a visit from
Karl.

The days went on. Dressmakers came and went. In the mountains
lace-makers were already working on the veil, and the brocade of white
and gold for her wedding-gown was on the loom. She was the pale center
of a riot of finery. Dressmakers stood back and raised delighted hands
as, one by one; their models were adjusted to her listless figure.

In the general excitement the Crown Prince was almost forgotten. Only
Nikky remained faithful; but his playing those days was mechanical,
and one day he was even severe. This was when he found Prince Ferdinand
William Otto hanging a cigarette o