"Weeping at calamities is to double them," replied Wharton; "and I never had any passion for sackcloth."
"No," replied the Electress, "I believe your perversity, enjoys the wreck that has been made of your own plans!"
"When the wind blows, he is but a fool who sits down to cry in the blast! common-sense, my sweet Electress, draws his cloak about, and walks merrily through the storm."
"But he does not scoff at the destructive elements!" replied the ecclesiastic; "may not the Duke de Ripperda think disparagingly of so smiling a rival?"
"My good Lord Almoner," returned Wharton, "I care not what Duke de Ripperda thinks. There is a season for all things! And when I am with the fair, I forget the follies of other men, and content myself with my own."
Whatever were his motives with regard to Louis, no act of recognition passed, either from his voice, or his looks, towards him, during the whole evening; and Louis, taking the tone from a judgment his enthusiasm made him deem infallible, behaved towards him with the same reserve. They often approached each other in the change of amusements; they sometimes passed close; and then the heart of Louis beat, and his cheek glowed, as he felt the dear attraction. As he was handing the daughter of the Princess de Waradin to the supper-room, he saw Wharton at a distance in one of the vestibules, conversing with the Count de Patinos; a young man of the highest rank amongst the Spaniards who had joined the embassy of their country.
The Electress and her party did not stay supper. It was in a style answerable to the august jour de fête; and at a late hour, the Emperor and Empress rose. Before Louis could pass from the table at which he had sat, to join his father, who had been the distinguished personage at the Imperial board, he was intercepted by a moving and involving throng. In short, he soon learnt, that from Ripperda's unexampled favour with the reconciled sovereigns, his son was become an object of calculating and universal attention. Some of the Spaniards had even drawn off from the proud side of de Patinos, and glided towards Louis; to gain, by his means, a freer passage into the circles, which seemed so eager to make him their center.
De Patinos was young, handsome, and ambitious. He was the son of the Marquis de Castallor, and the near kinsman of the venerable Grimaldo, the present ostensible minister in the cabinet of Spain:—and therefore, to see the almost regal honours paid to the Duke de Ripperda, whom he affected to consider as only the agent of that minister, excited jealousy for his own consequence, reflected from Grimaldo. But, that himself should be overlooked and disregarded in the presence of what he called the upstart Marquis de Montemar, because he was the son of this arrogant Ripperda, inflamed him with a hatred, that only waited opportunity to shew its malignant nature.
As wealth and rank are considered the corner stones of happiness in this world of selfish enjoyment, it was not to be wondered at, that a marriage with such a foreigner as Louis de Montemar, should be considered an advantageous object, by many of the most illustrious families at the German court. The restoration of Ripperda to his Spanish rights had given him rank with the first nobles in any land. His blood was superior to most of them, as it flowed from the mingled current of three lines of princes. And his riches, from his restituted property in Spain and the Indies; from his former fortune, transported from the Netherlands; and daily redoubling, by the exhaustless resources of commerce; were beyond the powers of calculation. It was not, then, a subject of surprise, though it might be of envy, that the heir of all this wealth and honours should be a point of ambition to the proudest mothers in Vienna; and as the expectant was also handsome and accomplished, it was not a wonder that many of the daughters smiled upon the young de Montemar. He saw many fair, and more elegant; but none so fair, none so conspicuously elegant, as the graceful Otteline, whose absent form floated in fond regrets at the bottom of his heart. He sighed to think, that the spirit was not so fair as its temple; and then he sighed again, as he checked himself for the repining pang which accompanied the remembrance.