“There,” the Archduchess murmured, drawing her wraps about her with a sneeze: “she has said quite enough now I think about my _toilette_!” But the illustrious Eva was in unusual fettle, and only closed her notebook towards Dawn, when the nib of her pen caught fire. VI And suddenly the Angel of Death passed by and the brilliant season waned. In the Archduchess’ bed-chamber, watching the antics of priests and doctors, he sat there unmoved. Propped high, by many bolsters, in a vast blue canopied bed, the Archduchess lay staring laconically at a diminutive model of a flight of steps, leading to what appeared to be intended, perhaps, as a hall of Attent, off which opened quite a lot of little doors, most of which bore the word: “Engaged.” A doll, with a ruddy face, in charge, smiled indolently as she sat feigning knitting, suggesting vague “fleshly thoughts,” whenever he looked up, in the Archduchess’ spiritual adviser. And the mind of the sinking woman, as her thoughts wandered, appeared to be tinged with “matter” too: “I recollect the first time I heard the _Blue-Danube_ played!” she broke out: “it was at Schonnbrunn--schönes Schonnbrunn--My cousin Ludwig of Bavaria came--I wore--the Emperor said----” “If your royal highness would swallow this!” Dr Cuncliffe Babcock started forward with a glass. “Trinquons, trinquons et vive l’amour! Schneider sang that----” “If your royal highness----” “Ah my dear Vienna. Where’s Teddywegs?” At the Archduchess’ little escritoire at the foot of the bed, her Dreaminess was making ready a few private telegrams, breaking without undue harshness the melancholy news: “Poor Lizzie has ceased articulating,” she did not think she could improve on it, and indeed had written it several times in her most temperamental hand, when the Archduchess had started suddenly cackling about Vienna. “_Ssssh_, Lizzie--I never can write when people talk!” “I want Teddywegs.” “The Countess Yvorra took him for a run round the courtyard.” “I think I must undertake a convenience next for dogs.... It is disgraceful they have not got one already, poor creatures,” the Archduchess crooned accepting the proffered glass. “Yes, yes, dear,” the Queen exclaimed rising and crossing to the window. The bitter odour of the oleander flowers outside oppressed the breathless air and filled the room as with a faint funereal music. So still a day. Tending the drooping sun-saturated flowers, a gardener with long ivory arms alone seemed animate. “Pull up your skirt, Marquise! Pull it up.... It’s dragging, a little, in the water.” “_Judica me, Deus_,” in imperious tones, the priest by the bedside besought: “_et discerne causam meum de gente non sancta. Parce, Domine! Parce populo tuo--! ne in aeternum irascaris nobis_.” “A whale! A whale!” “_Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus speravit anima mea in Domino._”