"That, sir, would no doubt be better known to those at court than to me, who come fresh from my study and my hospitals. Your majesty will be able to answer that question yourself. I can only give you a few indications. His highness told me that he remembered sometimes feeling those fits of giddiness and exhaustion even before the great floods in the north. That was in March. It is now September. I imagine that his highness has been leading a very active life in the meantime?"
The emperor made movements with his eyebrows as if he could not understand: tremulous motions of his powerful head, with its fleece of silvering hair.
"The journey to the north may in fact have affected his highness, professor," the empress began.
She was sitting haughtily upright, in her plain dark dress. Her face was expressionless, her eyes were cold. She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, as though she were not a mother.
"His highness is very sensitive to impressions," she continued, "and he received a good many at Altara that were likely to shock him."
The professor made a slight movement of the head:
"I remember, ma'am, seeing his highness at the identification of the corpses in the fields," he said. "His highness was very much affected...."
"But to what does all this tend?" asked the emperor, still recalcitrant.
"It tends to this, sir, that his highness has presumably allowed himself no rest since that time...."
"His highness has allowed himself months of rest!" exclaimed the emperor.