lamours. For the light never stood
still, continually changed its brightest spot, turned the ball into one
glittering kaleidoscope. The light gilded each bit of gold-lace, was
caught in every brilliant, hung in every pearl. The music seemed to be
one with that light; the brass resounded like gold.

The Duchess of Yemena stood among a group of diplomatists and equerries;
she rose monumental in her beauty, which was statuesque and splendid in
this wayward illumination. She seemed supernaturally tall, thanks to the
heavy Watteau plait which trailed from her back in white brocade. She
wore her tiara of emeralds and brilliants; and the same green stones
sparkled in a great jewelled spray that blossomed over her bodice.

The emperor came up to her; she drooped in her famous curtsey and Oscar
jested with her for a moment. When the emperor had passed on, she saw
the crown-prince approach. She curtseyed again; he bowed smilingly and
offered her his arm. Slowly they went through the ballroom.

"I have something important to say to you," he whispered, in a
conversational tone.

He could not move away with her; they would be missed. So they continued
to walk through the rooms.

"It is so long since I saw you ... alone!" she whispered, reproachfully,
in the same voice. "And what did ... what did your highness wish to say
to me?"

They spoke cautiously, with the smile of cool conversation on their
lips, deadening the sound of their voices, casting indifferent glances
around them, to see whether they could be overheard.

"Something ... that I have long wanted to tell you.... A decision I have
to take...."

The words came crumbling in fragments from his lips and not sounding
with their true accent, from caution. She perceived that he was about to
tell her some great piece of news. She trembled without knowing why....
He himself did not know whether what he was doing was cruel or not: he
did not know this woman well enough for that. But he did know that he
had purposely chosen this difficult moment for his interview, because he
was uncertain how she would bear it ... how she would bear it in a
_tete-a-tete_, when she would be able to give way to her passion. Here
he knew how she would bear it: smilingly, as a woman of the world,
although it turned to anguish for her. Perhaps after all he was
cruel.... But it was too late now: he must go through with it.

She looked up at him, moving the feathers of her fan. He continued:

"A