Now began for Wilhelmine a time of strangely mixed and contending emotions. She loved Eberhard Ludwig with all that fervour and lavish freshness which we give to our first love; she longed to surrender to his passion, yet she held back with a modesty of maidenly reserve which her many jealous enemies ascribed to calculation, or else entirely denied, alleging that she was a mere adventuress plying her illicit trade according to her habit. Of a truth, there may have been a shade of strategy in her virtuous hesitation, for Madame de Ruth, who had returned to Stuttgart post-haste on hearing of his Highness's advent, constantly counselled her to hold back. Wilhelmine herself realised that a battle's importance is generally gauged by its difficulty, and the ultimate victory more highly prized if hardly won. Sometimes she wondered why she knew these things, and laughingly she told Madame de Ruth of this.
'Dear child,' said the old woman with her thin, satirical smile, 'we women come into the world knowing such things; whereas men—poor, beloved fools!—need experience, philosophy, and the Lord knows what, to teach them. Alas! by the time they have learned they no longer need their knowledge, for by that time cruel old age has got them in its grey, dull clutches.'
Another factor in Wilhelmine's life at that time was the Duke's friend Baron Forstner, a man of excellent and sterling qualities, but one of those unfortunate mortals cursed with a lugubrious manner which makes their goodness seem to be but one more irritating characteristic of a tiresome personality. Forstner was genuinely devoted to the Duke; he had been the companion of the Prince's childhood, had shared his studies, and had followed him on his travels to the various European courts and in the campaigns where Eberhard Ludwig had so mightily distinguished himself. How cruel it is that devotion may be so entirely masked by some wearisome trait, as to turn the whole affection into a source of irritation to its object! Forstner perpetually reminded his Highness of his duty.
Now Eberhard Ludwig was possessed of a high regard for that stern code of life which is called Duty; he had all a soldier's respect for rule, for obedience, all a gentleman's reverence for honour and truth; yet these things, as presented by Forstner, were to him odious, and his first impulse was to go counter to any advice proffered in the drab-coloured guise of Forstner's counsel, and by his deep, dreary voice.
'L'osseux,' the Bony One, Madame de Ruth dubbed him; and truly the sobriquet was justified, for the man was so long and thin as to give the impression of bones strung on strings. He walked in jerks: his flat, narrow feet posed precisely, the head held forward, like some gaunt bird seeking with its lengthy beak for any meagre grain which might chance in its way. Somehow one felt the grain he sought must be meagre. 'The good God wills that Forstner lives,' said Madame de Ruth, 'and God knows he lives according to God's rules; but oh! how more than usually tiresome he makes those rules, poor Bony One!'
Forstner naturally disapproved of Wilhelmine, and the two were for ever contradicting each other; but she often endeavoured to propitiate him, for she loathed disapproval, and preferred the open hostility of a real enemy to the presence of any merely disapproving person. Eberhard Ludwig suffered intensely in those weeks at Stuttgart; he was fiercely irritable to Forstner, resenting his comments on Wilhelmine, though he longed childishly for some appreciation of a new and much-prized toy.
Stafforth, who had returned with the Duke, assisted the intrigue to the best of his ability by constantly arranging meetings, feasts, picnics in the forest, music in the evenings, followed by gay suppers. But he offended Wilhelmine deeply, though she gave no sign thereof, for he treated the whole situation as an ordinary court intrigue, which indeed it was, though both people concerned were earnestly and deeply engaged in the one great love of their lives. Forstner sat like a grim, polite skeleton at these feasts, and Wilhelmine grew to hate him in those summer days. Her hatred was destined to wreak a terrible vengeance against him. Friedrich Grävenitz had also returned to Stuttgart, leaving his wife in Rottenburg awaiting the birth of their first child.
Duchess Johanna Elizabetha continued to reside at the castle, torturing herself with jealous fears. She appeared before the Duke with eyes reddened by sleepless nights and bitter tears, and her habitual dreariness of being was doubled.
Eberhard Ludwig himself, intent upon his love, gave the poor woman scarce a thought, though when he saw her he noted her tear-stained eyelids and her woebegone, reproachful ways with an irritation which, though it could not pierce the studied courtesy of his manner, made itself felt, and further wounded the unhappy woman. Madame de Stafforth was constantly with the Duchess, and thus her Highness was perfectly informed of the Duke's daily visits at the Stafforth house.
The days dragged on, and the heat grew to be almost unbearable. Each day the sun shone more gloriously, and the Duchess longed for one grey, overcast day. To her the sun seemed pitiless and cruel, the summer's amplitude seemed to mock her in her misery.