When we were alone that evening, he came up to me and held out his hand.
“Please forget what I said to you today,” he began.
As I took his hand, a smile quivered on my lips and the tears were ready to flow; but he took his hand away and sat down on an armchair at some distance, as if fearing a sentimental scene. “Is it possible that he still thinks himself in the right?” I wondered; and, though I was quite ready to explain and to beg that we might not go to the party, the words died on my lips.
“I must write to my mother that we have put off our departure,” he said; “otherwise she will be uneasy.”
“When do you think of going?” I asked.
“On Tuesday, after the reception,” he replied.
“I hope it is not on my account,” I said, looking into his eyes; but those eyes merely looked—they said nothing, and a veil seemed to cover them from me. His face seemed to me to have grown suddenly old and disagreeable.
We went to the reception, and good friendly relations between us seemed to have been restored, but these relations were quite different from what they had been.
At the party I was sitting with other ladies when the Prince came up to me, so that I had to stand up in order to speak to him. As I rose, my eyes involuntarily sought my husband. He was looking at me from the other end of the room, and now turned away. I was seized by a sudden sense of shame and pain; in my confusion I blushed all over my face and neck under the Prince’s eye. But I was forced to stand and listen, while he spoke, eyeing me from his superior height. Our conversation was soon