Although nearly fifty, she was still a very fine-looking woman.  The few silver threads which now mingled in her hair were skilfully concealed by Lamperi’s art, and few ladies in Ghent were more tastefully and richly apparelled.

Among the guests who thronged to her house there was no lack of elderly gentlemen who would gladly have married the vivacious, unusual woman, who was so nearly connected with the royal family, and lived in such luxurious style.

Never had she had more suitors than at this time; but she had learned the meaning of a loveless marriage, and her heart still belonged to the one man to whom, notwithstanding the deep wounds he had inflicted, she owed a brief but peerlessly sublime happiness.

She could not even have bestowed upon her husband the alms of a sincere interest, for, in spite of the increasing number of social and musical engagements which filled her life, one thought alone occupied the depths of her soul—­her John, his renown, grandeur, and honour.

Her son Conrad had no cause to complain of lack of affection from his mother, but the victor of Lepanto was to her the all-animating sun, the former only a friendly little star.  Besides, she rarely saw him now, as he was studying in Lowen.

As she had modelled her housekeeping after that of the Castilian nobles, and her guests almost exclusively belonged to the royal party, she also sought Spanish houses or those of the city magistrates who were partisans of the King.

News of her son would be most fully supplied there, and many an officer whom she met had served under her John, and willingly told the mother what he admired and had learned from him.  The young Duke of Ferdinandina, a Spanish colonel, who had studied with John in Alcala, and then fought by his side at the conquest of Tunis, stirred her heart most deeply by his enthusiastic admiration for the comrade who was his superior in every respect.

All the pictures of Don John, the young officer who had shared his tent declared, gave a very faint idea of his wonderful beauty and bewitching chivalrous grace.  Not only women’s hearts rushed to him; his frank, lovable nature also won men.  As a rider in the tournament, in games of ball and quarter staff, he had no peer; for his magnificently formed body was like steel, and he himself had seen Don John share in playing racket for six hours in succession with the utmost eagerness, and then show no more fatigue than a fish does in water.  But he was also sure of success where proof of intellect must be given.  He did not understand where Don John had found time to learn to speak French, German, and Italian.  Moreover, he was thoroughly the great noble.  On the pilgrimage which he made to Loretto he had distributed more than ten thousand ducats among the poor.  The piety and charity which distinguished him—­he had told him so himself—­owed to the lady who reared him, the widow of the never-to-be-forgotten Don Luis