During my sleep the shade of the sun had shifted and I lay in the full glare, and so, as I opened my eyes, I could see nothing.
I heard the laughter of my dream again, and I knew that the mocking cry of “Prenez garde, Altesse!” that still rang in the air did not belong to my sleep. But as I rubbed my eyes and looked out once again, I caught first a glimpse of a slender creature bending over me, outlined it seemed in fire and shimmering between black and gold. My next glance filled me with a woeful disappointment, for I declare, what with my dream and my odd awakening, I expected to find before me a beauty no less bewitching than that of her Royal Highness herself. What I beheld was but a slim slip of a creature who, from the tip of her somewhat battered shepherdess hat to the hem of her loosely hanging skirts, gave me an impression of being all yellow, save for the dark cloud of her hair. Her skin seemed golden yellow like old ivory, her eyes seemed to shoot yellow sparks, her gown was yellow as any primrose. As she bent to watch me, her lip was arched into a smile; it had a deep dimple on the left side. Thus I saw her in a sort of flash and scrambled to my feet still half drunk with drowsiness, crying out like a fool:
“Où est son Altesse? Où est son Altesse?”
She clapped her hands and turned with a crow of laughter to some one behind me. And then I became aware that, as in the dream, there were two. I also turned.
My eyes were in their normal state again, but for a moment I thought myself still wandering. Here was her Highness. A Princess, indeed, as beautiful as any vision and yet most exquisitely embodied in the flesh; a Princess in this wilderness! It seemed a thing impossible, and yet my eyes now only corroborated the evidence of my ears.
I marked, almost without knowing, the rope of pearls that bound her throat (I had become a judge of jewels by being the possessor of so many). I marked her garments, garments, for all their intended simplicity, rich, and bearing to my not untutored observation the latest stamp of fashion. But above all I marked her air of race, her countenance, young with the first bloom of youth, mantled with blushes yet set with a royal dignity.
I have, since that eventful day, passed through so many phases of feeling, sweet and violent, my present sentiments are so fantastically disturbed, that I must try to the last of this writing and see matters still as I saw them at the time. Yes, beyond doubt what I noticed most, what appealed to me most deeply then, was the great air of race blended and softened by womanly candour and grace. She looked at me gravely, with wide brown eyes, and I stumbled into my best courtly bow.
“He wants to know,” said the damsel of the yellow skirts, this time in German, the clear, clean utterance of which had nothing of the broad Austrian sounds I was accustomed to hear—“he wants to know ’where is the Highness?’ But he seems to have guessed where she stands, without the telling. Truly ’tis a pity the Lord Chamberlain is not at his post to make a presentation in due form!”
The lady thus addressed took a step towards her companion, with what seemed a protest on her lip. But the latter, her small face quivering with mischief and eagerness, whispered something in her ear, and the beautiful brown eyes fixed themselves once again smilingly on me.