She hesitated; but the man's face was so noble, so open. Why not? 'Monseigneur, I know not,' she whispered.
'Mademoiselle, I entreat. If you knew how I hate these crowded rooms. I am a soldier, and I love the memory of those nights encamped in the open, when I left my tent and wandered alone beneath the stars. Forstner—you know Forstner? No? Well—a good friend, yet always at my elbow with rebukes and etiquette! Well—old Forstner used to chide me, saying it was not fitting for a reigning Duke to wander alone "like a ridiculous poet-fellow philandering with the stars," as he called it. Ah! Mademoiselle, will you leave the Duke here on the balcony, and come and look at the stars with the ridiculous poet-fellow? will you?'
Who could resist him, this man with the pleading eyes and deep, strong voice? And Wilhelmine, coming from Mecklemburg to make a career, had begun it already, God knows! by falling in love with the Duke. They went down the steps leading to the garden, and in silence walked along the path towards the fountain. The moon played white over the flowers, and the sound of the violins, harps, and zithers faded away in the distance. They reached an old stone seat beneath a beech-tree and sat down. Before them the fountain rose, like some shimmering witch in the moonlight.
'Sing me a snatch of some song, Mademoiselle,' said Eberhard Ludwig. 'There is no one near; sing to me once, to me alone—to the silly poet-fellow!'
'Nay, Monseigneur,' she answered tremulously, 'I cannot sing—my heart is beating in my throat somehow.'
He looked at her in the moonlight.
'Mademoiselle de Grävenitz,' he said, 'I have never been so happy, yet so unutterably sad, as at this moment. I—I—Mademoiselle——' and his voice broke. He took her hand in his and, raising it to his lips, kissed it once, twice, then in a husky voice he said, 'We must go back.' He rose from the seat, offering her his arm. He led her up the dark garden-path and into the glitter of lights in the ante-hall of the Lusthaus, where Madame de Stafforth stood ready to depart, waiting for Wilhelmine. The Duke sent Stafforth for Mademoiselle's cloak, and when he brought it, his Highness himself wrapped it round her. As he did so, his hand involuntarily touched the soft skin of her shoulder, and Eberhard Ludwig flushed to the edge of his white curled peruke as he murmured: 'Au revoir, Philomèle!' and Wilhelmine daringly whispered back: 'Au revoir, gentil poète.'
