e behaved like a good sort of fellow in the dark, I will
condescend to tell you why. I go to the palace to arrange with Gordon;
but how is Gordon to obey me? And how can I foresee the hours? It may be
midnight; ay, and it may be nightfall; all's a chance; and to act, I
must be free and hold the strings of the adventure. And now," she
cried, "your Vivien goes. Dub me your knight!" And she held out her arms
and smiled upon him radiant.

"Well," he said, when he had kissed her, "every man must have his folly;
I thank God mine is no worse. Off with you! I have given a child a
squib."

CHAPTER XII

PROVIDENCE VON ROSEN: ACT THE SECOND SHE INFORMS THE PRINCE

It was the first impulse of Madame von Rosen to return to her own villa
and revise her toilette. Whatever else should come of this adventure it
was her firm design to pay a visit to the Princess. And before that
woman, so little beloved, the Countess would appear at no disadvantage.
It was the work of minutes. Von Rosen had the captain's eye in matters
of the toilette; she was none of those who hang in Fabian helplessness
among their finery, and, after hours, come forth upon the world as
dowdies. A glance, a loosened curl, a studied and admired disorder in
the hair, a bit of lace, a touch of colour, a yellow rose in the bosom;
and the instant picture was complete.

"That will do," she said. "Bid my carriage follow me to the palace. In
half an hour it should be there in waiting."

The night was beginning to fall and the shops to shine with lamps along
the tree-beshadowed thoroughfares of Otto's capital, when the Countess
started on her high emprise. She was jocund at heart; pleasure and
interest had winged her beauty, and she knew it. She paused before the
glowing jeweller's; she remarked and praised a costume in the milliner's
window; and when she reached the lime-tree walk, with its high,
umbrageous arches and stir of passers-by in the dim alleys, she took her
place upon a bench and began to dally with the pleasures of the hour. It
was cold, but she did not feel it, being warm within; her thoughts, in
that dark corner, shone like the gold and rubies at the jeweller's; her
ears, which heard the brushing of so many footfalls, transposed it into
music.

What was she to do? She held the paper by which all depended. Otto and
Gondremark and Ratafia, and the state itself, hung light in her
balances, as light as dust; her little finger laid in either scale would