"If I agree to that proposition, it amounts to a request that you will invite women to our fete this evening—will it not?" said the king, still thrumming on the window.
"And with what rapture would I fulfil your wish, but I fear it would be difficult to induce the ladies to come to the house of a young bachelor as I am!"
"Ah, bah! I have determined during the next winter to give these little suppers very often. I will have a private table, and women shall be present."
"Yes, but your majesty is married."
"They would come if I were a bachelor. The Countess Carnas, Frau von Brandt, the Kleist, and the Morien, are too witty and too intellectual to be restrained by narrow-minded prejudice."
"Does your majesty wish that I should invite these ladies?" said the general; "they will come, without doubt, if your majesty commands it. Shall I invite them?"
The king hesitated a moment to reply. "Perhaps they would not come willingly," said he; "you are unmarried, and they might be afraid of their husbands' anger."
"I must, then, invite ladies who are not married," said Rothenberg, whose face was now radiant with delight; "but I do not know one unmarried lady of the higher circles who carries her freedom from prejudice so far as to dare attend a bachelor's supper."
"Must we always confine our invitations to the higher circles?" said the king, beating his parade march still more violently upon the window.
Rothenberg watched him with the eye of a sportsman, who sees the wild deer brought to bay.