"We are going to Vienna, mademoiselle," she announced breathlessly, "and no later than to-night. I have just ordered the post-chaise for madame. One cannot trust that Kurtz. It is a great secret. Will not mademoiselle come with us? One is so happy at Vienna! And mademoiselle will probably meet the young count quite easily there—or somebody else just as handsome," added Eliza. Her eyes rollicked.
Sidonia looked at the gleeful, unscrupulous, excited face and recoiled. Wine flowed as freely in the menials' hall, on fête nights, at the Palace of Bellevue as in the salons. And Eliza was one who would profit of the occasion. But now the Burgrave's voice rose from the inner room with sudden clangour. The maid, suddenly sobered, caught Sidonia's wrist.
"Ah, ciel," she cried, "what is passing within there? And we, who thought monsieur safe away, in attendance of the King! ... Why, mademoiselle, how white you are, and how you tremble!" Immoral she might be, like her mistress; but, unlike her, she was kind. "Ah, he was not there, then, to-night," she proceeded with rapid intuition. "Listen, Mademoiselle Sidonia, since he won't come, if I were you I should just go to him.... And quick, quick, before he signs. He can't turn you away ... even if he wanted it. Sapristi, but you are still his wife."
A fresh outburst of wrangling voices in Betty's rooms here drew her curiosity in another direction.
"I must go and be with poor madame," she exclaimed; the twinkle in her eye, over the delight of witnessing the marital scene, contrasted oddly with the pious devotion of her tone.
"Tu verras que cela va rater encore cette fois," she was telling herself philosophically, as she hurried away.
"If you want help," had said the soft-voiced old lady, "ask for la Grande Maréchale de la Cour." If ever a poor daughter of Eve wanted help, it was surely Sidonia, standing between the Scylla of nameless evil and the Charybdis of dire humiliation.
A refuge for the night, the loan of a small sum, to enable her to gain the Forest House—for Sidonia was still kept like a child and had no purse of her own—surely, it was small assistance that she required. She paused but to catch up a travelling cloak in her room; then, seeking the outer corridor again, bade the first valet on her way guide her to the apartment of Madame la Grande Maréchale. She would wait, she planned, for the great lady's return from festivity. There must be safety where such gentle old age presided; and good counsel; perchance even an escort, forthcoming on the morrow for her journey back to the Thuringian forest.
The Maréchale's apartments were on the ground floor, and Sidonia thought fortune favoured her when the porter informed her that "Her Excellency" herself had that instant entered. Still more at ease felt she when the pretty old lady received her with open arms and cooing words of welcome:
"Ma belle enfant, this is well! I had presentiments. I expected you. That great bear of a Chancellor, your uncle, and the little minx of a wife he has ... (linnet-head, wasp-temper, ferret-heart—I know the kind! One look at her, ma chère, it was enough): that was no place for you. Nay, you wanted a friend, and it is well you came to me, very well." She nodded; and the bird-of-paradise plume in her gauzy turban quivered over her white curls.