At Midnight.
My cousin Richelieu caused his mistresses to be painted in all sorts of monastic garments and licentious devices, saying: "I have my saints and martyrs; they are all that; but, as for virgins, there are none outside of Paradise." Substitute paillards for the holy ones and you have the situation in a nutshell.
The Vitzthums are panderers. They always manage to leave me alone with Henry. When we are a-wheel, they ride a mile ahead; while playing tennis one or the other aims the ball, every little while, to enter the open window of a summer-house, where my lover and I can exchange a few rapid kisses. When we are driving, without coachman or groom, of course, they always "feel like walking a bit," while Henry and I remain in the carriage.
The same at the house, on the veranda. They are always de trop. Vitzthum even sacrifices himself to the extent of paying court to the Tisch and engaging her entire attention, if it must be. He reminds me of a certain colonel of the French army during the Regency.
"Monseigneur," said this gentleman to my cousin d'Orleans, "permit me to employ my regiment as a guard for my wife, and I swear to you that nobody shall go near her but Your Highness."
Of course, it's very lovely of them, but rather emphasizes the poor opinion I have of the nobility.
Your nobleman and noblewoman adopt all tones, all airs, all masks, all allures, frank and false, flattering and brutal, choleric or mild, virtuous or bawdy—anything as long as it makes for their profit. Some months ago I met at the Dresden court the Dowager Countess Julie Feodorowna of Pappenheim, who told everybody she could persuade to listen that her eldest son, Max Albrecht, had to resign the succession, because he married beneath him, an American heiress, Miss Wheeler of Philadelphia.
"Then you despise money?" I queried with a malicious thought just entering my head.
"Not exactly, Your Imperial Highness," she said, "but our house laws——"