"How strange! I had the very same thought," said the queen, "and, now that I think of it, I can still recollect that the lord steward looked at me incessantly." The affection of the two ladies was cemented by a hundred little memories. The carriage drove on slowly, but their thoughts took in days and months. There was a turn in the road; they had just reached the place where the statue had been shattered. "It was a terrible night," said the queen, "when that happened, and it seems to me that simple-minded Walpurga is right when she says that it is wrong for us thus to expose the undraped human figure." "I must be permitted to differ with Your Majesty," replied Irma. "The free--why should we mince words?--the nude, beautiful human form is the only one in accord with free nature. All frippery is subject to changes of taste and fashion. The human form as shaped by the hand of nature, is alone fitted to stand in her temple." "You are a free soul; far freer than I am," said the queen. They alighted. Irma accompanied the queen to her apartments and then returned to her own. When she found herself alone she threw up her hands, exclaiming: "What is the greatest punishment? It is not hell, where other guilty ones suffer with us! No; to be conscious of guilt and yet condemned to remain beside a pure and happy creature; that is far worse than all the torments of hell!" "God keep you, Irma! God keep you!" shrieked the parrot. Irma started with a shudder. CHAPTER XV. Spring returned, ushered in by the merry singing of larks and finches, and bringing with it the latest Paris fashions. The queen now appeared in public, and the ladies of the capital were delighted to pattern their costumes after hers. The queen drove out, with Irma beside her, and Walpurga and the prince opposite. "You must not worry when you're at home again," said the queen to Walpurga. Addressing the queen in French, Irma said, with a smile: "Countess Brinkenstein would disapprove of your manifesting any interest in the future fortunes of one whose term of service is at an end." With a degree of boldness that surprised her two well-wishers, Walpurga said: "There'll be one advantage at any rate, for, at home, they won't treat me as if I were deaf and dumb." "How do you mean?" "Why, they wouldn't, while I was about, say things that I can't understand." Irma endeavored to pacify her, but without avail. Walpurga's longing for home had made her exacting and dissatisfied. She felt ill at ease everywhere, and felt sure that the very people who had done so much to humor and spoil her would soon get along without her.