In the raised seats near the High
Council, Mrs. Hastings and Mr. Frothingham leaned to wave a
sustaining greeting. Until that high moment Mrs. Medora Hastings had
been by no means certain that Olivia would appear at all, though she
openly nourished the hope that "everything would go off smoothly."
("I don't care much for foreigners and never have," she confided to
Mr. Frothingham, "still, I was thinking while I was at breakfast,
after all, to the prince _we are_ the foreigners. There is something
in that, don't you think? And then the dear prince--he is so very
metaphysical!")
Upon the beetling throne Olivia took her place, and her women sank
about her like tiers of sunset clouds. She was so little and so
beautiful and so unconsciously appealing that when Prince Tabnit and
Cassyrus and the rest of the court entered, it is doubtful if an eye
left Olivia, to homage them. But Prince Tabnit was the last to note
that, for he saw only Olivia; and the world--the world was an
intaglio of his own designing.
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