Read "A Mummer's Throne" by Fred M. White online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A score of the queen's intimates were dining with her in the yellow parlour. These for the most part consisted of the leading characters in the royal drama. The king was not present--it was understood that he disapproved of this new frivolity. The theatre was in the hands of a gang of workmen. An hour or so later, and some fifteen hundred guests would be gathered there. A supper and dance would follow, and these would bring to a fitting climax the gaieties of the Rusta season. On the morrow the court would move to the summer palace on the Danube.
All this was gravely recorded in the Continental Press. There were those, smiling grimly to themselves, who knew better. The next news from Rusta would be a tragedy thrilling Europe from one end to the other.