“Poor Ann-Jules,” she said: “I fear he’s in the clutches of that awful woman.” “Kalpurnia?” “Every night he’s at the Opera.” “I hear she wears the costume of a shoe-black in the new ballet,” Mademoiselle de Nazianzi said, “and is too strangely extraordinary!” “Have you decided, Rara,[1] yet, what you’ll wear for the ball?” “A black gown and three blue flowers on my tummy.” “After a Shrimp-tea with the Archduchess, I feel I _want_ no dinner,” Mademoiselle Olga Blumenghast, a girl with slightly hunched shoulders said, returning from the window. “Oh? Had she a party?” “A curé or two, and the Countess Yvorra.” “Her black bordered envelopes make one shiver!” “I thought I should have died it was so dull,” Mademoiselle Olga Blumenghast averred, standing aside to allow his Lankiness, Prince Olaf (a little boy wracked by all the troubles of Spring), and Mrs Montgomery, the Royal Governess, to pass. They had been out evidently among the crowd, and both were laughing heartily at the asides they had overheard. “’Ow can you be so frivolous, your royal ’ighness?” Mrs Montgomery was expostulating: “for shame, wicked boy! For shame!” And her cheery British laugh echoed gaily down the corridors. “Well _I_ took tea at the Ritz,” Mademoiselle de Lambèse related. “Anybody?” “Quite a few!” “There’s a rumour that Prince Yousef is entertaining there to-night.” Mademoiselle Blumenghast tittered. “Did you hear what he called the lanterns for the _Fête_?” she asked. “No.” “A lot of ‘bloody bladders’!” “What, what a dearest,” Mademoiselle de Nazianzi sighed beneath her breath. And all along the almost countless corridors as far as her bedroom door, she repeated again and again: “What, _what_ a dearest!” II Beneath a wide golden ceiling people were dancing. A capricious concert waltz, drowsy, intricate, caressing, reached fitfully the supper-room, where a few privileged guests were already assembled to meet King Jotifa and Queen Thleeanouhee of the Land of Dates. It was one of the regulations of the Court, that those commanded to the King’s board, should assemble some few minutes earlier than the Sovereigns themselves, and the guests at present were mostly leaning stiffly upon their chair-backs, staring vacuously at the olives and salted almonds upon the table-cloth before them. Several of the ladies indeed had taken the liberty to seat themselves, and were beguiling the time by studying the menu or disarranging the smilax, while one dame went as far as to take, and even to nibble, a salted almond. A conversation of a non-private kind (carried on between the thin, authoritative legs of a Court Chamberlain) by Countess Medusa Rappa and the English Ambassadress, was being listened to by some with mingled signs of interest.