"Shall I do so, mamma? As I told you, Valérie has spoken to me...."
"Very well, you do it...."
The duchess reflected, looked at the clock:
"It is so late now: I'll tell her after dinner; we are none of us dressed yet.... What do you think?"
"Very well then, after dinner...."
The crown-princess went out: it was time to hurry and dress. At seven o'clock a loud, long bell sounded. They assembled in the hall; the dining-room looked out with its large bow-windows upon the pine-forest. It was a long table: King Siegfried, a hale old sovereign with a full, grey beard; Queen Olga; the Crown-prince Gunther, tall, fair, two-and-thirty; Princess Sofie and her children; Othomar, sitting between his aunt and Valérie; Herman and Wanda; Olaf and Christofel; the two dowagers with Countess von Altenburg; equerries, ladies-in-waiting, chamberlains, Princess Elizabeth's governess, the little princes' tutors....
The conversation was cheerful and unconstrained. The ladies wore simple evening-frocks; the king was in dress-clothes, the younger princes and equerries in dinner-jackets. The young princesses wore light summer dresses of white serge or pink mousseline-de-laine; they had stuck a flower or two from the conservatory into their waist-bands.
Valérie talked merrily; Herman once more teased her about her cloud-sketches, but Othomar said that he admired them very much. Queen Olga and Princess Sofie exchanged a glance and were quieter than the others. The king also looked very thoughtfully at the young people. After dinner the family dispersed; the crown-prince and Herman went for a row on the sea, with the younger princes and the children, in two boats. Wanda and Valérie, their arms wound around each other's waists, strolled up and down along the front-terrace; the awning was already drawn up for the night. The sea was still blue, the sky pearl-grey and no longer so bright; above the horizon the sun still burnt ragged rents in the widely scattered clouds.
The girls strolled about, laughed, looked at the two little boats on the sea and waved to them. Very far away, a steamer passed, finely outlined, with a dirty little ribbon of smoke. The young princes shouted, "Hurrah! Hurrah!" and hoisted their little flag.
"Do look at those papers of Herman's!" said Valérie. "Aunt Olga hates that untidiness...."