Then they both laughed, and then they both sighed; and the king, touching the count's elbow, pointed out to the terrace of the palace, on to which the room where they were opened. For Princess Osra and her lover were walking up and down together on this terrace. And the two shrugged their shoulders, smiling. [Illustration: "HE LEANED FROM HIS SADDLE AS HE DASHED BY, AND ... SNATCHED THE KING'S SWORD AWAY FROM HIM, JUST AS THE KING WAS ABOUT TO THRUST IT THROUGH HIS SISTER'S LOVER."] "With him," remarked the king, "it will have been with--" "The countess, sire," discreetly interrupted Count Sergius of Antheim. "Why, yes, the countess," said the king; and, with a laugh, they turned bank to their wine. But the two on the terrace also talked. "I do not yet understand it," said Princess Osra. "For on the first day I loved you, and on the second I loved you, and on the third, and the fourth, and every day I loved you. Yet the first day was not like the second, nor the second like the third, nor any day like any other. And to-day, again, is unlike them all. Is love so various and full of changes?" "Is it not?" he asked with a smile. "For while you were with the queen, talking of I know not what--" "Nor I, indeed," said Osra hastily. "I was with the king, and he, saying that forewarned was forearmed, told me very strange and pretty stories. Of some a report had reached me before--" "And yet you came to Strelsau?" "While of others, I had not heard." "Or you would not have come to Strelsau?" The Grand Duke, not heeding these questions, proceeded to his conclusion: "Love, therefore," said he, "is very various. For M. de Mérosailles--" "These are old stories," cried Osra, pretending to stop her ears. "Loved in one way, and Stephen the Smith in another, and--the Miller of Hofbau in a third." "I think," said Osra, "that I have forgotten the Miller of Hofbau. But can one heart love in many different ways? I know that different men love differently." "But cannot one heart love in different ways?" he smiled. "May be," said Osra thoughtfully, "one heart can have loved." But then she suddenly looked up at him with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. "No, no," she cried; "it was not love. It was--" "What was it?" "The courtiers entertained me till the king came," she said with a blushing laugh. And looking up at him again, she whispered: "Yet I am glad that you lingered for a little." At this moment she saw the king come out on to the terrace, and with him was the Bishop of Modenstein; and after the bishop had been presented to the Grand Duke, the king began to talk with the Grand Duke, while the bishop kissed Osra's hand and wished her joy. "Madam," said he, "once you asked me if I could make you understand what love was. I take it you have no need for my lessons now. Your teacher has come." "Yes, he has come," she said gently, looking on the bishop with great friendliness. "But tell me, will he always love me?"