She came forward graciously and greeted the churchman with a profoundly reverential courtesy. He returned her salutation coldly and turned away his eyes, for her beauty was dazzling still, and he feared he might be influenced.
'I think, your Excellency,' he said quietly, 'I think his Highness the Duke wished to speak with me?'
'Monseigneur Osiander, I have ventured to request your presence concerning a matter which has been long in my thoughts,' she said in her most sonorous tones, and with that smile upon her lips which few could resist; but Osiander observed her coldly and gravely.
'I pray you be seated,' she continued, and pointed to a large red-cushioned chair, one which Zollern had brought from Rome, the typical dignified, high-backed chair of the Roman Cardinal. To Osiander its very shape was Papistical.
She flung herself down upon a gilt tabouret which stood near. It was much lower than the Prelate's seat, and he could not fail to look down into the deep décolletage of her bodice. He moved away a little, while a faint flush rose to his cheeks.
'I am listening, Excellency,' he said; 'but you will pardon me if I urge you to be brief, for I have much business to transact this afternoon.'
'Ah! Prelate, it is so difficult to be brief with those who do not comprehend!' She leaned towards him. 'I have ever—respected you, Monseigneur.'
The Prelate drew back from her. In his mind he repeated over and over again, as though the phrase were an incantation against some evil spirit: 'The Jezebel flatters me, the Jezebel flatters me,' but man, he could not remain insensible to the woman who thus appealed to him, though priest, he abhorred her. All her charm was in her eyes, her smile; there was a fragrance about her—an exhilaration.
'Madame, it were better if you respected God's laws,' he said sternly. His severity seemed to him as a barrier which he raised between his human weakness and her evil fascination. She sprang up; actress that she was, she meant to convince this man by a grand and tragical scene. She knew him to be too simple, too unsubtle, to detect the art which lent power and pathos to her words. Besides, she was well in her rôle, it amused her.
'Ah! you priest of God! I appeal to you, not concerning the necessarily unjust laws of men, but concerning the law of God and Nature. See, it is no law of God's that I have transgressed. Remember, I am truly the wife of Serenissimus, blessed by prayer. My second marriage is nothing—merely a political arrangement. And my sin, what is it? I found a good man dragging out the days of his youth in sadness beside a woman who could not understand him—a woman only his wife in name. I gave my life to him, I am true to him. The law of man refuses me justice, but God does not, cannot; and I appeal to you, as God's representative on earth, to give me my spiritual right: to include me in your prayers.' She sank back upon the tabouret. The Prelate was astounded. The question of the Landhofmeisterin's being mentioned in the public prayers for the head of the State came back to him, but it was incredible, preposterous. No; this woman surely sought the grace of God. She was earnest, repentance had come to her. She desired his prayers. Thus well had Wilhelmine gauged the Prelate's character, his incapacity for detecting the play-actress in the passionate, imploring woman.
