And she flung back her head with a half-disdainful smile. But as she did so, her eyes lit accidentally upon the mirror, and she saw her own image reflected in its bright depths.
She started; for she had already forgotten the "ugly old woman" whom she had apostrophized on the day previous. Suddenly she burst into a peal of laughter, and cried out. "No wonder poor Kaunitz looked as if he had seen something horrible! HE SAW ME—and I am the Medusa that turned him into stone. Poor, short-sighted man! He had been in blissful ignorance of my altered looks until I laid my hand upon his shoulder. I must do something to heal the wound I have inflicted. I owe him more than I can well repay. I will give him a brilliant decoration, and that will be a cure-all; for Kaunitz is very vain and very fond of show."
While the empress was writing the note which was to accompany her gift, Kaunitz, with his handkerchief over his mouth, was dashing through the palace corridors to his carriage. With an impatient gesture he motioned to his coachman to drive home with all speed.
Not with his usual stateliness, but panting, almost running, did Kaunitz traverse the gilded halls of his own palace, which were open to-day in honor of the empress's recovery, and were already festive with the sound of the guests assembling to a magnificent dinner which was to celebrate the event. Without a word to the Countess Clary, who came forward elegantly attired for the occasion, Kaunitz flew to his study, and sinking into an arm-chair, he covered his face with his hands. He felt as if he had been face to face with death. That was not his beautiful, majestic, superb Maria Theresa; it was a frightful vision—a messenger from the grave, that forced upon his unwilling mind the dreadful futurity that awaits all who are born of woman.
"Could it be? Was this indeed the empress, whose beauty had intoxicated her subjects, as drawing from its sheath the sword of St. Stephen, she held it flashing in the sun, and called upon them to defend her rights? Oh, could it be that this woman, once beautiful as Olympian Juno, had been transformed into such a caricature?"
A thrill of pain darted through the whole frame of the prince, and he did what since his mother's death he had never done—he wept.
But gradually he overcame his grief, the scanty fountain of his tears dried up, and he resumed his cold and habitual demeanor. For a long time he sat motionless in his chair, staring at the wall that was opposite. Finally he moved toward his escritoire and took up a pen.
He began to write instructions for the use of his secretaries. They were never to pronounce in his presence the two words DEATH and SMALL-POX. If those words ever occurred in any correspondence or official paper that was to come before his notice, they were to be erased. Those who presented themselves before the prince were to be warned that these fearful words must never pass their lips in his presence. A secretary was to go at once to the Countess Clary, that she might prepare the guests of the prince, and caution them against the use of the offensive words. [Footnote: Hormayer, "Austrian Plutarch," vol. xii., p. 374.]
When Kaunitz had completed these singular instructions, he rang, and gave the paper to a page. As he did so, a servant entered with a letter and a package from her majesty the empress.
The package contained the grand cross of the order of St Stephen but instead of the usual symbol the cross was composed of costly brilliants. The letter was in the empress's own hand—a worthy answer to the "instructions" which Kaunitz was in the act of sending to his secretaries.