Henniche laughed.
'Your Excellency forgets that for such a game I must be rewarded.'
'When he is in the cage,' Brühl said. 'And it seems to me that you do not forget yourself.'
'We are both alike,' rejoined Henniche folding the papers. 'Why should we cheat each other? We know each other well.'
Brühl, although the ex-lackey treated him so brutally, did not dare to answer; he needed him.
The minister returned with a serene face to the drawing-room, where the card tables were quite ready. The Countess Moszynski, tapping the table with her fingers, waited for him.
'Sit down,' she said, 'at this hour all business goes to bed.'
[CHAPTER XXI]
The last days of the carnival were more merry than in former years, because everyone tried to make the King cheerful, on whose forehead could often be seen something like sadness and yearning.
He yawned very often during the afternoon, and Guarini's jokes could not make him laugh. They asked Faustina to sing the King's favourite songs. Frosch and Horch were promised a reward for good tricks. They induced the King to shoot every day at a target. The entertainments at the castle were very brilliant. Brühl would hardly leave the castle; he would stand at the door trying to guess the King's thoughts. Sometimes Augustus would be in a better humour and would smile; but very often too, during the laughter, a cloud would come and the monarch's face would become suddenly gloomy; then he would turn to the window, and appeared not to see or to hear anything.