On the next day, Porporina awoke from a deep slumber, completely overpowered, and found on her bed two things which her maid had just placed there. One was a flacon of rock crystal, with a gold stopper, on which was engraved an "F." with a royal crown. The second was a sealed package. The servant, on being questioned, said that the king had come in person on the previous day to bring the flacon. When she heard the circumstances of a visit which was so naïve and respectful, Porporina was much moved.
"Strange man!" thought she. "How can so much mildness in private life be reconciled with public sternness and despotism?" She fell at once into a reverie, and gradually forgetting the king and thinking of herself, retraced confusedly the events of the previous evening. She began to weep.
"What is the matter, signora?" said the maid, who was a kind soul, and an indifferently diffuse talker. "Are you going to cry again, as you did when you went to bed. This is enough to break one's heart; and the king, who was at the door when he heard you, shook his head two or three times, as if he was much distressed. Yet, signora, many would envy you. The king does not court everybody. They say he courts no one, yet it is very certain that he is in love with you."
"In love? What do you say?" said Porporina, shuddering. "Never say such an improper and absurd thing again. The king in love with me? Great God!"
"Well, signora, suppose he were?"
"God grant he may not be! He, however, neither is nor will be. What roll is this, Catharine?"
"A servant brought it early in the morning."
"Whose servant?"
"A person picked up in the streets. At last, though, he told me he had been employed by the servants of a certain Count of St. Germain, who came hither yesterday."
"Why did you ask the question?"