was so strong, I could hardly make way
against it. I oughtn't to have gone. But I felt a need ... for
movement."

The queen looked at her anxiously:

"How are you feeling now?"

"Oh, very well, aunt! Rather stiff; and a little headache. It's nothing.
Only my hands are terribly blistered: just look...."

And she laughed.

The old aunts asked for copious details of what had happened: it was
difficult to make them understand. Wanda sat down between the two of
them, told them the story; their sharp cockatoo-profiles kept on wagging
up and down at Wanda, in astonishment. The aunts pressed their hands to
their hearts and looked at Valerie with terror in their eyes; she smiled
to them pleasantly. When Countess von Altenburg appeared, the aunts took
the old mistress of the household between them and in their turn told
her the story, screeching it into the countess' poor old ears. King
Siegfried entered; he went up to Valerie, who rose, took her head in his
hands, looked at her and shook his grey head; nevertheless he smiled.
Then he looked at his sisters; he was always amused at them; they were
still in the middle of their story to the countess and kept on taking
the words out of each other's mouths.

"Come, it was not so dreadful as all that!" said the king, interrupting
them. "It's very nice to go rowing like that, once in a way, and an
excellent remedy for a sick-headache. You ought to try it, Elsa, when
you have one of yours."

The old princess looked at him with a sugary smile; she never knew
whether her brother meant a remark of this kind or not. She shook her
stately head slowly from side to side:

"No, _lieber Siegfried_, that is more than we can do. _Unsere liebe
Erzherzogin_ is still a young thing!..."

Othomar, Gunther and Herman entered: they had been playing billiards;
the young princes followed them. Valerie gave a little shiver, rose and
went up to Othomar:

"I thank you, Xara," she said. "I thank you a thousand, thousand times!"

"But what for?" replied Othomar, simply. "I did no more than row you a
bit of the way back. There was no danger. For, if you had been too tired
to go on rowing, you could always have jumped into the sea and swum
ashore. You're a strong swimmer. You would only have lost the boat."

She looked at him:

"That's true," she said. "But I never thought of it. I was ...
bewildered perhaps. I should not have done that; I had a fixed idea that
I had to row back. If I hadn't been