'You? My poor boy! You?—you remove me?' She began to laugh.
'It may be ridiculous, Madame,' he said humbly, 'but such are my father's orders.' She laughed again. 'Come, Madame, give me your answer. Believe me, I would spare you pain but if you will not go, I am commanded to have you arrested and conveyed to Hohenasperg.' Then the horror of it came to the Landhofmeisterin.
'I to Hohenasperg? O God! God! that it should come to this! Ah! the cruelty! But still I will fight to the last—I will never go.' Her voice had risen to shrillness, her face was contorted by anger; she looked incarnate rage, a Megæra. Suddenly her features resumed their usual expression—nay, more, it was the face of the grande charmeuse.
'Prince Friedrich, help me; this is only a passing mood of your father's! Let me stay here till he returns from Berlin. Use your power for my good; you are heir to all this splendour; you will reap the harvest of beauty I have sown at Ludwigsburg. Help me, and you will never regret it.' She had come close to him, smiling into his eyes. The frail, sensitive youth flushed scarlet.
'Prince, you are the image of your father as I knew him twenty years ago. You bring my youth back to me.' She laid her hand upon his shoulder and drew him towards her. She was very beautiful for all her forty-five years, her presence was intoxication.
'Friedrich, Friedrich, you could revenge so much—so much neglect, if you were my friend.' Her lips were very near to his, her breath was on his cheek. Like most super-sensitive beings, he was vividly passionate; and she knew it, and this was her last card: to make him love her, aid her to stay at Favorite, then, when Eberhard Ludwig returned, surely jealousy would recall love. It was a dangerous game enough, but it was her last resource.
'Little Friedrich, who makes me feel young again,' she murmured. Now her lips are on his—and the room swings round him—while the scent of the fading lilacs in the garden is wafted in with delicious, heavy, unwholesome sweetness. And she herself, caught by an eddy of her feigned passion, is swept into a wave of sensual recollection. She is in the Rothenwald again on a spring morning—overhead a bird sings a rhapsody—and she——
With a cry the Prince sprang away from her.
'Madame! O Madame! you tempt me from my duty; you must go from here. Indeed, I cannot help you, but I will not let the guards disturb you, till to-morrow. I pray you, Madame, go this day.'
'Never; you do not know me! I will never go. Use force if you will—but I stay at Ludwigsburg.'