The song concluded abruptly, and with passion;--and the King, turning on his elbow, glanced with a touch of curiosity at the face of his Queen. There was not a flicker of emotion on its fair cold calmness,--not a quiver on the beautiful lips, or a sigh to stir the quiet breast on which the lilies rested, white and waxen, and heavily odorous. He withdrew his gaze with a half smile at his own folly for imagining that she could be moved by a mere song to any expression of feeling,--even for a moment,--and allowed his glance to wander unreservedly over the forms and features of the other ladies in attendance who, conscious of his regard, dropped their eyelids and blushed softly, after the fashion approved by the heroines of the melodramatic stage. Whereat he began to think of the tiresome sameness of women generally; and their irritating habit of living always at two extremes,--either all ardour, or all coldness. “Both are equally fatiguing to a man’s mind,” he thought impatiently--“The only woman that is truly fascinating is the one who is never in the same mind two days together. Fair on Monday, plain on Tuesday, sweet on Wednesday, sour on Thursday, tender on Friday, cold on Saturday, and in all moods at once on Sunday,--that being a day of rest! I should adore such a woman as that if I ever met her, because I should never know her mind towards me!” A soft serenade rendered by violins, with a harp accompaniment, was followed by a gay mazurka, played by all the instruments together,--and this finished the musical programme. The Queen rose, accepting the hand which the King extended to her, and moved with him slowly across the rose-garden, her long snowy train glistering with jewels, and held up from the greensward by a pretty page, who, in his picturesque costume of rose and gold, demurely followed his Royal lady’s footsteps,--and so amid the curtseying ladies-in-waiting and other attendants, they passed together into a private boudoir, at the threshold of which the Queen’s train-bearer dropped his rich burden of perfumed velvet and gems, and bowing low, left their Majesties together. Shutting the door upon him with his own hand, the King drew a heavy portière across it,--and then walking round the room saw that every window was closed,--every nook secure. The Queen’s boudoir was one of the most sacred corners in the whole palace,--no one, not even the most intimate lady of the Court in personal attendance on her Majesty, dared enter it without special permission; and this being the case, the Queen herself was faintly moved to surprise at the extra precaution her husband appeared to be taking to ensure privacy. She stood silently watching his movements till he came up to her, and bowing courteously, said:-- “I pray you, be seated, Madam! I will not detain you long.”