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An hour had passed, and Mary, against her inclination, had danced with various partners, and had heard around her comments regarding her personal beauty and her dress such as always reached her ears on such occasions. Everyone courted and flattered her, for in that gay court circle she was one of its reigning queens. Yet the hot air stifled her; the mingled perfumes of flowers and chiffons nauseated her. She hated it all, and was longing to get away back to the solitude of her own room, where, after old Teresa had brushed her hair, she might sit in her big easy-chair and think.
Blase of life before her time, she was disappointed, world-weary, and heart-broken, although as yet only in her early womanhood. She had been dancing with the young Prince de Sarsina, a well-known figure in Roman society, and he had led her to a seat beside the old Duchess de Rovigor, when, in the lull of the music, those mysterious knocks were again repeated, and at the farther end of the ballroom there stood the black-habited royal chamberlain.