“Then there is no danger of our meeting them and being recognized; and as we have relays on the road, we will reach Berlin before them.”
CHAPTER III. LOUISE VON KLEIST.
Madame von Kleist was alone in her boudoir. She had just completed her toilet, and was viewing herself with considerable pleasure in a large Venetian glass. She had reason to be pleased. The costume of an odalisque became her wonderfully; suited her luxuriant beauty, her large, dreamy blue eyes, her full red lips, her slender, swaying form. At twenty-eight, Louise von Kleist was still a sparkling beauty; the many trials and sorrows she had passed through had not scattered the roses from her cheek, nor banished youth from her heart.
Louise von Kleist resembled greatly the little Louise von Schwerin of earlier days—the little dreamer who found it romantic to love a gardener, and was quite ready to flee with him to a paradise of love. The king’s watchfulness saved her from this romantic folly, and gave her another husband. This unhappy match was now at an end. Louise was again free. She still felt in her heart some of the wild love of romance and adventure of the little Louise; she was the same daring, dreamy, impressible Louise, only now she was less innocent. The little coquette from instinct was changed into a coquette from knowledge.
She stood before the glass and surveyed once more her appearance; then acknowledged with a pleased smile that she was beautiful enough to fascinate all men, to arouse in all hearts a painful longing.
“But I shall love no one but the prince,” she said, “and when my power over him is sufficient to induce him to marry me, I shall reward him by my faith, and entire submission to his wishes. Oh! I shall be a virtuous wife, a true and faithful mother; and my lovely little Camilla shall find in her mother a good and noble example. I shall promise this to my angel with my farewell kiss; and then—to the ball!”
She entered the next chamber, and stood at her child’s bed. What a strange sight! This woman, in a fantastic, luxuriant costume, bending over the cot of the little girl, with such tender, pious looks, with folded hands, and soft, murmuring lips, uttering a prayer or holy wish!
“How beautiful she is!” murmured Louise, not dreaming that her own beauty at this moment beamed with touching splendor—that mother love had changed the alluring coquette into an adorable saint—“how beautiful she is!”
The gay, ringing laughter of her daughter interrupted her; the child opened her large black eyes, and looked amused.