"Here, highness...."

The collie ran in noisily, put its great paws on the camp-bed, wriggled its haunches wildly to and fro as it wagged its tail....

Then, suddenly, it lay down quietly beside the bed.

The empress sent back to say that she would come at once; she was not yet dressed.... With calm, open eyes Othomar lay waiting for her.

She entered at last, a little agitated with anxiety. She questioned him, but learnt nothing from his vague, smiling replies. She laid her hand on his forehead, felt his pulse and could not make up her mind whether he had any fever. There was typhoid about: she was afraid of it....

The physicians-in-ordinary were called and relieved her mind: there was no fever. The prince seemed generally tired; he had doubtless over-exerted himself lately. He must rest....

The emperor was astonished: the prince had just been resting and had stayed on for weeks at Altseeborgen. What had been the use of it then!

The rumour ran through the palace, the town, the country, through Europe, that the Duke of Xara was keeping his room because of a slight indisposition. The physicians issued a simple and very rea.s.suring bulletin.

However, in the afternoon Othomar got up and even dressed himself, but not in uniform. He had had some lunch in his bedroom and now went to Princess Thera's apartments. She sat drawing; with her was a lady-in-waiting, the young Marchioness of Ezzera.

The princess was surprised to see her brother:

"What! Is that you? I thought you were in bed!..."

"No, I'm a little better...."

He bowed to the marchioness, who had risen and curtseyed.

"Won't you go on with the portrait?" asked Othomar.

Thera looked at him:

"You're looking so pale, poor boy. Perhaps I'd better not. It tires you so, that sitting, doesn't it?"

"Yes, sometimes, a little...."

They were now standing before the portrait; the marchioness had retired, as she always did when the brother and sister were together. The painting was half-covered with a silk cloth, which Thera pulled aside: it was already a young head full of expression, in which life began to gleam behind the black, melancholy eyes, and painted with broad, firm brushwork, with much reflection of outside light, which fell upon one side of the face and brought it into relief, throwing it forward out of the shadow in the background.

"Is it almost finished?" asked Othomar.

"Yes, but you've kept me waiting awfully long for the final touches: just think, you've been away for four months. I haven't been able to work at it all that time. But, you know ... you've changed. If only I shan't have to leave it like this. It's no longer like you...."

"It'll begin to be like me again, when I'm looking a little better!"

answered Othomar.

But the princess became rather nervous; she suddenly drew the silk cloth over it again....

Othomar did not appear at dinner; he went to bed early. The next day the doctors found him very listless. He was up but not dressed; he lay in his dressing-gown on the sofa in his room, with the collie at his feet.

He complained to the empress that he had such a queer feeling in his head, as though it were about to open and pour out all its contents.

For days this condition remained unchanged: a total listlessness, a total loss of appet.i.te, a visible exhaustion.... The empress sat by his side as he lay on his sofa staring through the open windows into the green depths of the park of plane-trees. The birds chirped outside; sometimes Berengar's small, shrill voice sounded among them, as he played with a couple of his little friends. The empress read aloud, but it tired Othomar, it made his head ache....

After a long conversation between the three doctors and the emperor and empress, Professor Barzia was summoned from Altara for a consultation: the professor was a nerve-specialist of European fame.

In the emperor's room the emperor, the empress and Count Myxila sat waiting for the result of the examination and the subsequent consultation. It lasted long. They did not speak while they waited: the empress sat staring before her with her quiet expression of acquiescence; the emperor walked irritably to and fro. The old chancellor, with his stern, proud face and bald head, stood pensively near the window.

Then the doctors were announced. They appeared, Professor Barzia leading the way, the others following. The empress fancied that she read the worst on the professor's pale, rigid features; one of the physicians, however, nodded his big, kind head compa.s.sionately from behind his colleague, to rea.s.sure her.

"Well?" asked the emperor.

"We have carefully examined his imperial highness, sir," the professor began. "The prince is quite free from organic disease, though his const.i.tution is generally delicate."

"What's wrong with him then?" asked Oscar.

"The prince's nervous system seems to us, sir, to have undergone an alarming strain."

"His nerves? But he's never nervous, he's always calm," exclaimed the emperor, stubbornly.

"All the more reason, sir, to appreciate the prince's self-restraint.

His highness has evidently kept himself going for a long time; and the effort has been too much for him at last. He is calm now, as your majesty says. But his calmness does not alter the fact that his nerves are completely run down. His highness has clearly been overtaxing his strength."

"And in what way?" asked the emperor, haughtily.

"That, sir, would no doubt be better known to those at court than to me, who come fresh from my study and my hospitals. Your majesty will be able to answer that question yourself. I can only give you a few indications.

His highness told me that he remembered sometimes feeling those fits of giddiness and exhaustion even before the great floods in the north. That was in March. It is now September. I imagine that his highness has been leading a very active life in the meantime?"

The emperor made movements with his eyebrows as if he could not understand: tremulous motions of his powerful head, with its fleece of silvering hair.

"The journey to the north may in fact have affected his highness, professor," the empress began.

She was sitting haughtily upright, in her plain dark dress. Her face was expressionless, her eyes were cold. She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, as though she were not a mother.

"His highness is very sensitive to impressions," she continued, "and he received a good many at Altara that were likely to shock him."

The professor made a slight movement of the head:

"I remember, ma'am, seeing his highness at the identification of the corpses in the fields," he said. "His highness _was_ very much affected...."

"But to what does all this tend?" asked the emperor, still recalcitrant.

"It tends to this, sir, that his highness has presumably allowed himself no rest since that time...."

"His highness has allowed himself months of rest!" exclaimed the emperor.

"Will your majesty permit us to cast our eyes backwards for a moment?

After the very fatiguing journey in the north, the prince returned straight to conditions of political excitement--Lipara was then under martial law--and afterwards came the bustle of a festival time, when the King and Queen of Syria were here...."

The emperor shrugged his shoulders.

"After that, the prince, acting on the advice of my respected colleagues, went on a sea-voyage to restore his health. No doubt his highness then enjoyed some days of rest; but the great hunting-trips in which he took part with Prince Herman were beyond a doubt too much for his highness' strength. Now, quite recently, his highness has been betrothed: this may have caused him some excitement. I am casually mentioning a few of the main facts, sir. I know nothing of the prince's inner life: if I knew something of that, it would certainly make many things much easier for me. But this is certain: his highness has from day to day led a too highly agitated existence, whatever the agitations may have been, great or small. That his highness did not collapse earlier is no doubt due to an uncommon power of self-control, of which I believe the prince himself to be unconscious, and an uncommon sense of duty, which is also quite spontaneous in his highness. These are high qualities, sir, in a future ruler...."

A faint flush dyed the empress' cheeks; a milder expression suffused the coldness of her features.