If this State ball did not degenerate exactly into a romp, it grew more free and easy as I sat watching it and waiting for the Oberkammerer. Von Orsova seemed to have had enough of dancing—he was evidently a good deal run after—and was now parading about with a dashing, middle-aged woman, corresponding to the skittish colonels’ wives we see in our garrison towns. They passed me, she chattering and laughing, he rather bored, as it struck me, and strolled off towards the music-room. Then I noticed the two men, Szalay and D’Urban, who had been with Von Lindheim and me in the gardens. They were talking earnestly together. I wondered if they, too, took the same serious view of the situation as my friend.