When Olivia's women fell back from the dais with wonder and murmur, the murmur was caught up in the great hall, and ran from tier to tier as amazement, as incredulity, and as thanksgiving.
For there, beside the beetling throne, was standing a man, slenderly built, with a youthful, sensitive face and critically-drooping lids, and upon them all his eyes were turned in faint amusement warmed by an idle approbation.
"Perfect--perfect.

Quite perfect," he was saying below his breath.
Olivia turned.

The next moment she stood with outstretched arms before her father; and King Otho, in his long, straight robe, encrusted with purple amethysts, bent with exquisite courtesy above his daughter's hands.
"My dear child," he murmured, "the picture that you make entirely justifies my existence, but hardly my absence.

Shall we ask his Highness to do that ?" It mattered little who was to do that so long as it was done.

For to that people, steeped in dream, risen from the crudity of mere events to breathe in the rarer atmosphere of their significance, here was a happening worthy their attention, for it had the dignity of mystery.
Even Mrs.Medora Hastings, billowing toward the throne with cries, was less poignantly a challenge to be heard.