“Listen then, beau cousin,” whispered Camilla, smiling. “You know that my stern, upright husband has left Berlin in order to receive the post of an ambassador at Copenhagen. I would not accompany him because I was daily expecting the birth of my child, and the little creature was so sensible as not to enter the world until after the departure of its honored father, who, before leaving, had delivered me a lecture on the subject of his fidelity and tenderness, and of my duties as a lonely wife and young mother. I was compelled to swear to him among other things that I would not receive my beau cousin at my house.”
“And you took that oath?” interrupted Kindar, reproachfully.
“I was forced to do so, or he would not have gone, or he would have taken me with him. Besides this, he left behind his old confidant the tutor, and told him that you should never be allowed to visit me. And to place the crown upon his jealousy, he betrayed the secret of his suspicions to my stepfather, and demanded of him the friendly service of accompanying me to all fetes and balls, and to prevent you from approaching me.”
“Am I then so dangerous?” said Kindar, with a faint smile.
“These gentlemen at least appear to think so; and if I did not care so much for you, I should really hate you, I have suffered so much on your account.”
Baron von Kindar covered her hand with burning kisses for an answer to this.
“Be reasonable, beau cousin, and listen to me,” said Camilla, as she laughingly withdrew her hand. “My husband has been, as I said, in Copenhagen for eight weeks, and has already entreated me to join him with the child, as I have entirely recovered.”
“The barbarian!” murmured Kindar.
“I have declined up to this time under one pretext or another. But yesterday I received a letter from my husband, in which he no longer entreats me, but dares, as he himself expresses it, to command me to leave Berlin two days after the receipt of his letter.”
“But that is tyranny which passes all bounds,” cried Kindar. “Does this wise lord think that his wife must obey him as a slave? Ah, Camilla, you owe it to yourself to show him that you are a free-born woman, whom no one dare command, not even a husband.”