On the second day of his stay we had a very merry dinner, having dispensed for the time with titled servants.
After dinner the three of us retired to the veranda. I was in a rocker, showing perhaps more of my ankles than was absolutely necessary. Frederick Augustus was smoking dreamily. Like an animal he likes to sleep after he has gorged himself.
Bernhardt, with my permission, had thrown himself on a wicker lounge and was absorbing cigarettes at a killing rate. I bantered him on his laziness. But he only sighed.
"You wish that audience was past and forgotten," I asked.
"Pshaw, I'm thinking of something prettier than the King."
Remembering Bernhardt's chief weakness, I indulged in the old joke, "Cherchez la femme."
Bernhardt replied, with another succession of groans, "You are right, Louise; parfaitement, cherchez la femme."
"Egads," grunted Frederick Augustus, glad for an excuse to go to his room, or play a game of pinochle with his aides, "egads, if you indulge in intellectualities, I had better go. A full stomach and French conversation—whew!"
The Tisch was in Dresden; Fräulein von Schoenberg with the children, Lucretia flirting somewhere at a neighboring country chalet. We were alone on the remote terrace and it was getting dark. Bernhardt sat up and looked at me with eyes of life-giving fire, but continued silent.
"You want me to think that you command the rays of the sun stolen by Prometheus?"