The enigmatical remark was received by me decorously as a piece of merited chastisement.  Nodding with gravity, I expressed regrets that the sea did not please her, otherwise I could have offered her a yacht for a cruise.  She nodded stiffly.  Her mouth shut up a smile, showing more of the door than the ray.  The dinner, virtually a German supper, ended in general conversation on political affairs, preceded and supported by a discussion between the Prussian-hearted General and the Austrian-hearted margravine.  Prince Ernest, true to his view that diplomacy was the weapon of minor sovereigns, held the balance, with now a foot in one scale, now in the other; a politic proceeding, so long as the rival powers passively consent to be weighed.

We trifled with music, made our bow to the ladies, and changed garments for the smoking-room.  Prince Ernest smoked his one cigar among guests.  The General, the Chancellor, and the doctor, knew the signal for retirement, and rose simultaneously with the discharge of his cigar-end in sparks on the unlit logwood pile.  My father and Mr. Peterborough kept their chairs.

There was, I felt with relief, no plot, for nothing had been definitely assented to by me.  I received Prince Ernest’s proffer of his hand, on making my adieux to him, with a passably clear conscience.

I went out to the library.  A man came in for orders; I had none to give.  He saw that the shutters were fixed and the curtains down, examined my hand-lamp, and placed lamps on the reading-desk and mantel-piece.  Bronze busts of sages became my solitary companions.  The room was long, low and dusky, voluminously and richly hung with draperies at the farther end, where a table stood for the prince to jot down memoranda, and a sofa to incline him to the relaxation of romance-reading.  A door at this end led to the sleeping apartments of the West wing of the palace.  Where I sat the student had ranges of classical volumes in prospect and classic heads; no other decoration to the walls.  I paced to and fro and should have flung myself on the sofa but for a heap of books there covered from dust, perhaps concealed, that the yellow Parisian volumes, of which I caught sight of some new dozen, might not be an attraction to the eyes of chance-comers.  At the lake-palace the prince frequently gave audience here.  He had said to me, when I stated my wish to read in the library, ‘You keep to the classical department?’ I thought it possible he might not like the coloured volumes to be inspected; I had no taste for a perusal of them.  I picked up one that fell during my walk, and flung it back, and disturbed a heap under cover, for more fell, and there I let them lie.

Ottilia did not keep me waiting.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE SCENE IN THE LAKE-PALACE LIBRARY

I was humming the burden of Gothe’s Zigeunerlied, a favourite one with me whenever I had too much to think of, or nothing.  A low rush of sound from the hall-doorway swung me on my heel, and I saw her standing with a silver lamp raised in her right hand to the level of her head, as if she expected to meet obscurity.  A thin blue Indian scarf mufed her throat and shoulders.  Her hair was loosely knotted.  The lamp’s full glow illumined and shadowed her.  She was like a statue of Twilight.