"But that is impossible," exclaimed his friends. "The laws of our guild protect us. No woman can carry on the business of a tailor."
"Nevertheless they will do so," said Pricker; "the king has accorded them this privilege. Yes, every thing will now be different, handsomer and better. The king summons these French dressmakers to Berlin, and the monsters ask my advice. They wish to know of me how they are to demean themselves toward the members of the guild. The new French dressmaker asks advice of me, of the court dressmaker Pricker! Ha, ha, ha! is not that laughable?" And Mr. Pricker broke out into a loud, wild laugh, which made his friends shudder, and then sunk slowly into the arms of the glover. His son William, who had been a witness of this scene, hurried to his father's assistance, and carried him into the house.
From his carriage Mr. Pelissier looked proudly down upon the poor tailor. "The good master has fainted," said he with an Olympic smile. "And he has good reason, for ruin is before him. He is a lost man; for how could he, an unknown German tailor, dare to compete with Pelissier, the son of the celebrated tailor of Louis the Fourteenth? That would evince an assurance and folly with which I could not credit even a German brain."
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DOUBLE RENDEZVOUS.
The little maid of honor, Louise von Schwerin, was walking with quick steps up and down her room; she had locked her door to secure herself from interruption. She wished to read once more the mysterious note found yesterday in the bunch of flowers, and once more to meditate undisturbed upon its contents. Louise knew the note was from the handsome gardener Fritz Wendel; from him came the beautiful flowers she found daily upon the sill of her window, and he only could have concealed the note amongst them. There were but a few lines, entreating her to meet him that night at eight o'clock, in the grotto of the conservatory, where she should learn an important and dangerous secret.
"What can the secret be?" asked Louise of herself, after reading the note again and again. "Perhaps," she said, with a roguish smile, "perhaps he thinks that his love for me is a secret. Dangerous it certainly is for him and for me, but a secret it is not. I am certain that he loves me, but it must be very sweet to be told so; to hear his lips confess at last what until now I have only read in those eloquent eyes. Alas! is it not fearful, intolerable, to wait so long for a declaration of love? Two months so near each other, but not one moment of sweet, unrestrained intercourse; always hemmed in by this cold, ceremonious, stupid court life; surrounded by spies and eavesdroppers; never alone, never free. Is it not terrible to have a sweetheart, and never to have refused him a kiss, because he has never had the opportunity to demand one? They say there is rapture in the first kiss of your lover—in his first embrace. I must know this for myself, that they may no longer laugh and say I am a silly child without experience. I will have my experience! I will have my love affairs as well as the other ladies of the court, only mine shall be more extraordinary, more romantic. To be loved by a baron or a count is indeed commonplace; but to be adored by a gardener, who is beautiful as the god Apollo, and whose obscure birth is his only fault—this is original, this is piquant. Ah, Madame von Brandt laughed at me yesterday, at my stupidity and innocence; she was merry at my expense, because I had never been kissed, never received a stolen embrace, which she declared to be the most charming event in a woman's life. All the ladies laughed at me as she said this, and called me an unbaked roll left out in the cold—which never felt the fire. They shall laugh at me no longer," cried Louise, with spiteful tears in her eyes and stamping her little foot. "No one shall mock at me again; and if they do, I will tell them I too have a lover; that I have had a declaration of love, and have received my lover's first kiss. I must be able to say this, and therefore I will meet Fritz this evening in the grotto of the conservatory." Even while saying this she was seized with a cold trembling; one moment her heart stood still, and then almost suffocated her with its rapid beating. A soft voice seemed to warn her against this imprudence; she seemed to see the pale face of her mother, and to hear her living counsels: "Do not go, Louise, Frit Wendel is no lover for Louise von Schwerin." Her guardian angel spread once more his white wings around her, longing to protect and save. But, alas! she heard another voice, breathing flattering words and sweet promises. She saw a beautiful youth with his soft, large, hazel eyes fixed imploringly upon her. Louise felt the irresistible charm of the forbidden, the disallowed, the dangerous. Louise closed her ear to the warning voice; her good genius had no power over her. "I will go," she said, and a rosy blush suffused her childish cheeks; "nothing shall prevent me!" Louise was now quite resolved; but she was not at peace with herself, and from time to time she hoped some unexpected occurrence, some unconquerable obstacle, would prevent her from taking this imprudent step. No difficulty arose; chance seemed to favor her meeting with her obscure lover.
Sophia Dorothea was to visit her daughter-in-law at Schonhausen, not as a queen, but without pomp and splendor. The two eldest maids of honor only would accompany her. Neither Louise von Schwerin nor Laura von Pannewitz were to be of the party. Sophia was glad that at least for a few hours she would not see the lovely, sad face, and soft, melancholy eyes of Laura, nor hear the low and plaintive tones of her accusing voice. The king had gone to Potsdam, it was therefore unnecessary to watch Laura. Indeed, of late the queen scarcely believed in this love, of which she had been so confident; she had tried in vain to discover any trace of an understanding between Laura and the king. Frederick scarcely noticed Laura, and had spoken to her but once since that stormy day; then he had laughingly asked her why she was so pale and languishing, and if it was an unhappy love which made her look so mournful. Since that day the queen no longer believed in the passion of the king for Laura, and she reproached Madame von Brandt with having misled her.
Madame von Brandt smiled mysteriously. "I did not say, your majesty, that the king loved Laura; your suspicions fell upon him, and I did not undeceive you."