In the grey dawn she awoke. It was all a dream, then. What was wrong, though? There was something—ah, yes! Eberhard Ludwig had ceased to love her. Absurd! It was a phantasy of her weary brain! She was ill, feverish.—Eberhard was occupied with an exacting guest, that was all. He would come back to her—he must. At last she slept dreamlessly. Fatigue conquered agony, and she slept.
The Landhofmeisterin awoke to a smiling world. Such a glory of Spring, of blossom and lilac. Maria threw open the windows, and the sound of the gardeners raking the paths of La Favorite gardens came in with the lilac scent. It was a good world, a very young world! Alas! the Grävenitz felt old and broken, ill from her night of agony. Maria told her that the Prussian King had left Ludwigsburg. Very early the cavalcade had started, and Serenissimus had ridden away with his guest.
'At what hour does his Highness return?' her Excellency queried.
'Not for several days; they say his Highness stays at Heilbronn to-night, and rides to the frontier with the King to-morrow, then goes boar-sticking in the Maulbronn forest, and will not return for four or five days,' the maid answered. The Landhofmeisterin sighed; in happier days the Duke had bidden her adieu tenderly, if he were forced to leave her for an hour, and now—— But it was absurd; of course he could not always worship her like a young lover, but he would never desert her.
'Who is in the antehall this morning, Maria?' she asked.
'No one, your Excellency.'
So the parasites were dropping away from the threatened tree.
All that day and the next, no one disturbed the solitude of La Favorite, even Baron Schütz held aloof. On the third morning the Landhofmeisterin sent for him, but the answer came back that the Finance Minister had left Ludwigsburg for a few days' rest. The Landhofmeisterin reflected grimly that Baron Schütz had never needed repose before.