The Italian musicians were grouped together at one end of her Highness's own reception-room in the castle of Stuttgart. The invited audience was small, for only such ladies and gentlemen as were actually obliged, by the holding of important court charges, remained in the town during the hot summer months; thus it had been deemed more fitting for the madrigals to be performed in the castle itself instead of in the fine hall of the Lusthaus where the court festivities usually took place. Her Highness's reception-room gave out on to the Renaissance gallery of the inner courtyard. The room was hung with sombre tapestries heavy with the dust of centuries; a number of waxen tapers flamed in silver candlesticks; rows of seats were arranged in a half-circle behind the high gilt chairs placed for his Highness Eberhard Ludwig and his consort her Highness Johanna Elizabetha.
The musicians turned over the leaves of the manuscript music on the desks before them; sometimes the sound of a violin chord, struck to prove its correctness, broke on the air. The swish of silken skirts on the wooden floor of the gallery without announced the advent of the first guests, and gradually the room was filled by richly clad ladies and finely attired gentlemen.
The appointed hour was long passed for the music's commencement, but neither the Duke nor the Duchess had left their apartments, and the courtiers whispered that their Highnesses were closeted together, and that angry voices had been heard by one of the pages attendant in the antehall. The clock of the Stiftskirche tolled out nine strokes, and the courtiers murmured angrily that they had been waiting an entire hour.
At length the door leading to her Highness's apartment was flung open, and Monsieur de Gemmingen, Controller of the Duchess's household, appeared, bowing deeply as Johanna Elizabetha entered, followed by Madame de Stafforth, who was in attendance on her Highness in the absence of Mademoiselle de Münsingen, the lady-in-waiting. The audience rose to greet the Duchess, and at that moment his Highness Eberhard Ludwig appeared from another door followed by Oberhofmarshall Stafforth, Reischach, and other gentlemen of the suite.
Her Highness bowed to right and left. Her face was deadly white and her eyes swollen with weeping; even her usual colourless amiability seemed to have deserted her, for, after the generally inclusive salute to the entire company, she swept towards her gilded chair without a word of direct greeting to any individual. Eberhard Ludwig, on the contrary, assumed an air of gaiety, as with his habitual grace of manner he passed down the lines of guests, finding a courteous word for each and all. Yet the courtiers remarked that his Highness's face was flushed, and that his eyes held a glitter of angry defiance; but he gave no other sign of disturbance, and did not respond to Stafforth's whispered inquiry if his Highness had heard news of serious import.
Johanna Elizabetha summoned the Oberhofmarshall and desired him to command the musicians to commence, and the courtiers watched how Eberhard Ludwig, seating himself beside her Highness, seemed to fix his mind upon the music. It was a matter of comment that Monsieur and Madame de Stafforth were present at the concert without their guest Mademoiselle de Grävenitz; and the well informed, delighted with their superior knowledge, whispered that the decree 'No Foreigners' was levelled at this lady alone. Under cover of the music the audience gossiped in whispers, while they noted the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha's demeanour with interest.
Her Highness sat beside the Duke in that attitude which, translated from court to market-place parlance, would have been 'turning her back upon him'; in more polite circles this attitude becomes a mere inclination of the shoulder. It is less satisfactory to the offended, though certainly not less abashing to the offender, than the ruder, more frankly human market-place manner. And it seemed as though his Highness felt it to be so, for he repeatedly endeavoured to address his spouse over this battlemented shoulder; but her Highness answered shortly, if at all, and the shoulder became each time more aggressively pointed.
The musicians meanwhile performed a series of madrigals accompanied by viole d'amore, violins, and viole da gamba. The candles flickered in the draught from the open windows. Madame de Ruth sat resignedly beside Monseigneur de Zollern, whose fine head had dropped forward on his breast. He was asleep; and Madame de Ruth realised, with a sigh, that her beloved had grown old; that her youth had vanished too, and even the joy of observing the tragi-comedy of human nature palled for her at that moment, and she felt herself to be old and lonely. At length the music ceased, and was followed by that insolent, half-hearted applause which it is the privilege of the truly cultured audience to offer to musicians or actors.
Her Highness intimated her approval, and desired the performers to rest a little after their exertions. At this moment a door, directly to the left of her Highness's seat, was flung open, and a bewildering vision of beauty stood framed in the doorway. It was Wilhelmine von Grävenitz, the expressly excluded foreign visitor. Johanna Elizabetha threw a glance towards this apparition and hastily averted her eyes, her face flaming from throat to brow.