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She longed to distinguish herself, to win fame, and, (why not?) to rule. She possessed one talent which she had cultivated to some extent, although she had never risen above the average; she played the piano. She began to study harmony and talked of the sonata in G minor and the symphony in F major as if she had written them herself. And forthwith she began to patronise musicians.

Six months after her father’s death, the post of a lady-in-waiting was offered to her. She accepted it. The rolling of drums and military salutes recommenced, and Helena gradually lost her sympathy with subalterns. But the mind is as inconstant as fortune, and fresh experiences again brought about a change of her views.

She discovered one day, and the day was not long in coming, that she was nothing but a servant. She was sitting in the Park with the Duchess. The Duchess was crocheting.

“I consider those blue stockings perfectly idiotic,” said the Duchess.

Helena turned pale; she stared at her mistress.

“I don’t,” she replied.

“I didn’t ask your opinion,” replied the Duchess, letting her ball of wool roll into the dust.

Helena’s knees trembled; her future, her position passed away before her eyes like a flash of lightning. She went to pick up the wool. It seemed to her that her back was breaking as she stooped, and her cheeks flamed when the Duchess took the ball without a word of thanks.

“You are not angry?” asked the Duchess, staring impertinently at her victim.

“Oh, no, Your Royal Highness,” was Helena’s untruthful reply.

“They say that you are a blue-stocking yourself,” continued the Duchess. “Is it true?”

Helena had a feeling as if she were standing nude before her tormentor and made no reply.

For the second time the ball rolled into the dust. Helena pretended not to notice it, and bit her lips to hold back the angry tears which were welling up in her eyes. “Pick up my wool, please,” said the Duchess.

Helena drew herself up, looked the autocrat full in the face and said:

“I won’t.”

And with these words she turned and fled. The sand gritted under her feet, and little clouds of dust followed in the wake of her train. She almost ran down the stone steps and disappeared.

Her career at court was ended; but a sting remained. Helena was made to feel what it means to be in disgrace, and above all things what it means to throw up one’s post. Society does not approve of changes and nobody would believe that she had voluntarily renounced the sunshine of the court. No doubt she had been sent away. Yes, it must be so, she had been sent away. Never before had she felt so humiliated, so insulted. It seemed to her that she had lost caste; her relations treated her with coldness, as if they were afraid that her disgrace might be infectious; her former friends gave her the cold shoulder when they met her, and limited their conversation to a minimum.

On the other hand, as she stooped from her former height, the middle-classes received her with open arms. It was true, at first their friendliness offended her more than the coldness of her own class, but in the end she preferred being first down below to being last up above. She joined a group of Government officials and professors who hailed her with acclamations. Animated by the superstitious awe with which the middle classes regard everybody connected with the court, they at once began to pay her homage. She became their chosen leader and hastened to form a regiment. A number of young professors enlisted at once and she arranged lectures for women. Old academic rubbish was brought out from the lumber-room, dusted and sold for new wares. In a dining-room, denuded of its furniture, lectures on Plato and Aristotle were given to an audience which unfortunately held no key to this shrine of wisdom.