Elizabeth bade him describe the lady. To do that, he felt was impossible; though, on the demand, his ready heart repeated its pulsations; and looking down, he merely answered, "she was with the Arch-duchess." The Empress smiled. She now knew whom he had seen; and by his disorder, had no difficulty in guessing the cause of his abstraction.
"The lady," returned she, "is the Countess Altheim; to whose care these apartments are consigned, as my first lady of the key. She is also the governess of my eldest daughter, whom you saw; and whom I wish her to model after her own graces!"
Louis unconsciously sighed, as he bowed to this information; and Elizabeth, thinking she understood his meaning, with a smile still more gracious than the former, added—"she is a widow, though so young:—and has hitherto loved me too well, to be persuaded from my service by any one of the numerous solicitors for her hand."
Louis felt another impertinent sigh rising to his lips, but he smothered it with a gentle effort; saying inwardly—"What is all this to me!" and made no answer to the Empress, but a second bow. She immediately passed to the subject of his audience.
In returning to the College, he would not suffer himself to dwell a moment on the image of the beautiful Countess. But he was not permitted to keep his wise resolve of dismissing it altogether from his thoughts; for the bright original found occasions of repeating the impression day after day.
She sometimes awaited him with preparatory messages from the Empress. At other times he surprised her and the young Princess at their studies. But at none of these meetings could she be prevailed on to linger a moment. When she had to deliver a message, she hastened away as soon as it was uttered. And when he broke on her accidentally, the instant he had caught a glimpse of her white arms moving over the lute, or had heard the trill of her exquisite voice warbling through the rooms, she would rise in disorder, and hurry from his ardent entreaties in so sweet a confusion, that it was sure to fix her idea in his mind till their next rencounter.
Louis felt the truth of the observation, that "The secret to interest, is to excite curiosity, and never satisfy it." He was ever asking himself, why the charming Countess, the worshipped of so many hearts, should be so timid to him? Or rather, why she should thus fly, as if with aversion, one whose heart was so well prepared to admire the graces of a mind, which, the Empress had assured him were equal to those of her matchless person. He had never seen any thing so beautiful as that person! And in so fair a temple, he could not doubt, as fair a spirit must dwell. He longed to converse with it; to understand all its loveliness; and to feel his heart sympathise, as it was wont to do in holy Lindisfarne, with all the pure intelligence of woman's mind. It was not of love he thought; for though he respected the sentiment, hitherto he had never felt its touch; and, as he had devoted his admiration to all that would take him out of himself, he had always regarded the winning of a female heart, as but a secondary object in the aims of his life. "Ah, never," has he often said, "would I give my noon of manhood to a myrtle shade! Woman's love was given to be the helpmate of man, but his folly makes her the tyrant!" In this case, as in others, Louis was yet to learn.—How wise is speculation, how absurd is practice!