"Ah, madame, what living person would dare to knock at the door of your royal highness, when it is known that you are in bed?"
"No living person, you say? Then it is some one dead. Listen! some one knocks again. Go, for you make me impatient."
The femme de chambre, more dead than alive, went to the door, and asked "Who is there?"
"It is I, Baroness Von Kleist," replied a well known voice. "If the princess be not yet asleep, say I have something very important to communicate to her."
"Well, be quick," said the princess. "Let her in, and leave us."
As soon as the abbess and her favorite were alone, the latter sate at the foot of her mistress's bed, and said, "Your royal highness was not mistaken. The king is desperately in love with Porporina, but he is not yet her lover. The young woman, therefore, has just now the most unlimited influence over him."
"How came you during the last hour to find out all this?"
"Because, when I was undressing to go to bed, I made my femme de chambre talk to me, and learned from her that she had a sister in the service of Porporina. Immediately I began to question her, and picked out, as it were, with a needle's point, the fact that my woman had left her sister's house just as the king visited Porporina."
"Are you sure of that?"
"My woman had seen the king distinctly as I see you. He even spoke to her, taking her for her sister, who was in another room, attending to her sick mistress, if the illness of the latter was not pretence. The king inquired after Porporina's health with the greatest anxiety, and stamped his feet with much chagrin when he learned that she continued to weep. He did not ask to see her, lest he should annoy her, and having left a very precious flacon for her, and said if she remained unwell, he would come at eleven o'clock on the next night."