Betty came thoughtfully into her husband's presence. The review had not been a success. In spite of velvet redingote and yellow plumes, she could not flatter herself that Jerome had singled her out. She began to have qualms as to the results of that unexplained and inexplicable mistake in her correspondence. She had fully promised herself that the first glance between her and the King would delicately give him to understand that her rigour was not as eternal as the uncompromising "Never" might have led him to believe.
Indeed, with natural optimism, under the rosy atmosphere evolved between her mirror and the shako à la Saxonne, she had come to tell herself that the unintended rebuff was, perhaps, not a thing to be regretted after all. Kings or chancellors, or simple Viennese lieutenants, men were much the same, she took it. And, as the experienced French have it, tenir la dragée haute, was none too bad a way to make the creatures yearn for it. Was not her own Burgrave a telling proof?
But the fact remained that Jerome had not even seemed aware of her existence that afternoon. Something had gone wrong about the review. At the last moment it had been found wiser to leave a certain regiment in barracks, information having transpired about a leaven of disloyalty. Jerome's brow had been thunder black. There had been a vast amount of discussion between him and five or six generals. And finally the King had left the field in high displeasure, before the programme of evolutions had been half concluded. And it was a painful fact that none of the populace cheered him as he went.
Certainly, if he had not looked at her, he had, at least, looked at no other fair one. Still, the day had been a failure for the Burgravine; and, as she drove back to the Palace, she had actually some doubts as to the shako. In her own apartment a new trouble confronted her. Sidonia, who had locked herself up alone after that momentous interview, now came very calmly to greet her. She had a smile on her lips, and—thus do we cherish vipers in our bosom!—Eliza's fingers had obviously been busy on the yellow head. The child was positively coiffée! Yes, and she was dressed, too: a fashionable creature. And pretty—undeniably pretty, in a singular, girlish way of her own. And not a word could the most insidious question draw from her lips. Betty was forced, in the end, to apply to Eliza. The tirewoman shrugged her shoulders. She knew well enough what had passed, but it was too much to expect her to gratify her mistress.
"Cannot madame see? Ah, it will not be long before those two are together again! If she coquets a little, certes, it will not be madame who will blame her! Oh, it is not for nothing that mademoiselle is making herself beautiful! Who knows if she will not meet him to-morrow night!"
"Heavens!" exclaimed the Burgravine, disagreeably struck, "you do not mean that she intends to go to the fête!"
"But, yes, madame; she has been choosing her dress. And oh, I know some one who will look pretty."
"But the deeds are actually drawn up. The marriage is as good as annulled already," cried Betty.
Eliza clacked her tongue contemptuously. "Until people are divorced, they are still married," she remarked sagely. "And it is not the young gentleman who wants a divorce, I can tell madame. 'Oh, how he is enamoured!' says Kurtz to me. 'He came in like a lion roaring,' says Kurtz. 'That is love,' he says to me. 'Beautiful!' he says."
Betty snapped herself out of her maid's hands, flung herself into a wrapper and went to seek the Burgrave.