r hair;
which was a favorite gesture of the lieutenant's, and Hedwig blushed.
After that she refused to look across at him, but sat staring fixedly
at the stage, where Frau Hugli, in a short skirt, a black velvet bodice,
and a white apron, with two yellow braids over her shoulders, was
listening with all the coyness of forty years and six children at home
to the love-making of a man in a false black beard.

The Archduchess, sitting well back, was nodding. Just outside the royal
box, on the red-velvet sofa, General Mettlich, who was the Chancellor,
and had come because he had been invited and stayed outside because he
said he liked to hear music, not see it, was sound asleep. His martial
bosom, with its gold braid, was rising and falling peacefully. Beside
him lay the Prince's crown, a small black derby hat.

The Princess Hilda looked across, and smiled and nodded at Ferdinand
William Otto. Then she went back to the music; she held the score in
her hand and followed it note by note. She was studying music, and her
mother, who was the Archduchess, was watching her. But now and then,
when her mother's eyes were glued to the stage, Hilda stole a glance
at the upper balconies where impecunious young officers leaned over the
rail and gazed at her respectfully.

Prince Ferdinand William Otto considered it all very wearisome. If one
could only wander around the corridor or buy a sandwich from the stand
at the foot of the great staircase--or, better still, if one could only
get to the street, alone, and purchase one of the fig women that Miss
Braithwaite so despised! The Crown Prince felt in his pocket, where his
week's allowance of pocket-money lay comfortably untouched.

The Archduchess, shielded by the velvet hangings with the royal arms on
them, was now quite comfortably asleep. From the corridor came sounds
indicating that the Chancellor preferred making noises to listening
to them. There were signs on the stage that Frau Hugli, braids, six
children, and all, was about to go into the arms of the man with the
false beard.

The Crown Prince meditated. He could go out quickly, and be back before
they knew it. Even if he only wandered about the corridor, it would
stretch his short legs. And outside it was a fine day. It looked already
like spring.

With the trepidation of a canary who finds his cage door open, and,
hopping to the threshold, surveys the world before venturing to explore
it, Prince Ferdinand William Otto r