"
He paused again, and gravely withdrew behind the tapestry.
"And presently," he cried therefrom, suiting his action to the word,
"to the blast of hautboys enters the king in state thus, with his
attendant lords. And with all that rich and familiar courtesy of which
he was master in his easier moods he passed from one to another,
greeting with supple dignity on his way, till he came at last softly
to the place prepared for him at table. And suddenly--shall I ever
forget, it, sir?--it seemed silence ran like a flame from mouth to
mouth as there he stood, thus, marble-still, his eyes fixed in a
leaden glare. And he raised his face and looked once round on us all
with a forlorn astonishment and wrath, like one with a death-wound--I
never saw the like of such a face.
"Whereat, beseeching us to be calm, and pay no heed, the queen laid
her hand on his and called him. And his orbs rolled down once more
upon the empty place, and stuck as if at grapple with some horror seen
within. He muttered aloud in peevish altercation--once more to heave
up his frame, to sigh and shake himself, and lo!--"
The viol-strings rang to his "lo!"
"Lo, sir, the Unseen had conquered.
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