In which a sudden assembly of familiar guests, champagne in hand and spirits high, unexpectedly converges to celebrate the prince's birthday with lively, sometimes heated discourse on profound and earthly matters alike. Among them, the prince keenly observes the varied temperaments and hidden tensions that ripple beneath the surface of joviality, all the while pondering the curious preoccupations of a young invalid and a visiting acquaintance whose interest in the boy appears peculiarly intense.