The princess rose at dawn the following day. She routed out Hans, the

head groom, and told him to saddle Artemis, the slim-limbed, seal-brown

filly which an English nobleman had given to her. Ten minutes later

she was in the saddle, and the heaviness on her heart seemed to rise

and vanish like the opal mists on the bosom of the motionless lake. A

pale star blinked at her, and the day, flushed like the cheek of a

waking infant, began drowsily to creep over the rolling mountains.

How silent all the city was! Only here and there above the chimneys

rose a languid film of smoke. The gates of the park shut behind her

with a clang, and so for a time she was alone and free. She touched

Artemis with a spur, and the filly broke into a canter toward the lake

road. The girl's nostrils dilated. Every flower, the thousand

resinous saps of the forest, the earth itself, yielded up a cool sweet

perfume that was to the mind what a glass of wine is to the blood,

exhilaration.

Mottled with pink, and gray, and blue, and gold, the ever-changing hues

of the morning, the surface of the lake was as smooth as her mirror

and, like it, always reflecting beauty. Fish leaped forth and fell

with a sounding splash, and the circles would widen and gradually

vanish. A blackbird dipped among the silent rushes; a young fox barked

importantly; a hawk flashed by. The mists swam hither and thither

mysteriously, growing thinner and fainter as the gold of day grew

brighter and clearer. Suddenly--in the words of the old

tent-maker--the false morning died, and it was day.

I'm afraid that somewhere among the princess' ancestors there was a

troubadour; for she was something of a poet. Indeed, I have already

remarked that she wrote verses. The atmospheric change of the morning

turned her mind into sentimental channels. How she envied the peasant

woman, who might come and go at will, sleep in the open or in the hut,

loving or hating with perfect freedom! Ah, Prince Charming, Prince

Charming! where were you? Why did you loiter? Perhaps for her there

was no Prince Charming. It might be so. She sighed.

She would never marry Doppelkinn--never. That horrible Steinbock! She

was glad, glad that she had struck him, again and again, across his

lying eyes and evil mouth. She had believed that she knew the world;

it was all yet a mystery; the older she grew the less she understood.

Wasn't anybody good? Was everybody to be distrusted? Which way should

she turn now? The world was beautiful enough; it was the people in it.

Poor Betty! She had her troubles, too; but somehow she refused to

confide them. She acted very much as if she were in love.




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