Did Ottilia know that this iron law, enforced with the might of a whole empire, environed her, held her fast from any motion of heart and will?  I could not get to mind that the prince had hinted at the existence of such a law.  Yet why should he have done so?  The word impossible, in which he had not been sparing when he deigned to speak distinctly, comprised everything.  More profitable than shooting empty questions at the sky was the speculation on his project in receiving me at the palace, and that was dark.  My father, who might now have helped me, was off on duty again.

I found myself driving into Sarkeld with a sense of a whirlwind round my head; wheels in multitudes were spinning inside, striking sparks for thoughts.  I met an orderly in hussar uniform of blue and silver, trotting on his errand.  There he was; and whether many were behind him or he stood for the army in its might, he wore the trappings of an old princely House that nestled proudly in the bosom of its great jealous Fatherland.  Previously in Sarkeld I had noticed members of the diminutive army to smile down on them.  I saw the princely arms and colours on various houses and in the windows of shops.  Emblems of a small State, they belonged to the history of the Empire.  The Court-physician passed with a bit of ribbon in his buttonhole.  A lady driving in an open carriage encouraged me to salute her.  She was the wife of the Prince’s Minister of Justice.  Upon what foundation had I been building?

A reflection of the ideas possessing me showed Riversley, my undecorated home of rough red brick, in the middle of barren heaths.  I entered the palace, I sent my respects to the prince.  In return, the hour of dinner was ceremoniously named to me:  ceremony damped the air.  I had been insensible to it before, or so I thought, the weight was now so crushing.  Arms, emblems, colours, liveries, portraits of princes and princesses of the House, of this the warrior, that the seductress, burst into sudden light.  What had I to do among them?

The presence of the living members of the Family was an extreme physical relief.

For the moment, beholding Ottilia, I counted her but as one of them.  She welcomed me without restraint.

We chattered pleasantly at the dinner-table.

‘Ah!  You missed our French troupe,’ said the margravine.’

‘Yes,’ said I, resigning them to her.  She nodded: 

’And one very pretty little woman they had, I can tell you—­for a Frenchwoman.’

’You thought her pretty?  Frenchwomen know what to do with their brains and their pins, somebody has said.’

’And exceedingly well said, too.  Where is that man Roy?  Good things always remind me of him.’

The question was addressed to no one in particular.  The man happened to be my father, I remembered.  A second allusion to him was answered by Prince Ernest: 

’Roy is off to Croatia to enrol some dozens of cheap workmen.  The strength of those Croats is prodigious, and well looked after they work.  He will be back in three or four or more days.’