"He comes late," thought she. "Perhaps he has forgotten that he promised to come. Gracious Heaven! what, if he should be proof against the blandishments of woman! I fear me he is too cold—and Poland will be lost. And yet his eye, when it rests upon me, speaks the language of love, and his hand trembles when it touches mine. Ah! And I—when he is by, I sometimes forget the great cause for which I live, and—no, no, no!" exclaimed she aloud, "it must not, shalt not be! My heart must know but one love—the love of country. Away with such silly, girlish dreaming! I am ashamed—"
Here the countess paused, to listen again, for this time a carriage stopped before the door, and the little French clock struck the hour.
"He comes," whispered she, scarcely breathing, and she turned her bright smiling face toward the door. It opened, and admitted a young woman whose marvellous beauty was enhanced by all the auxiliaries of a superb toilet and a profusion of magnificent jewels.
"Countess Zamoiska," exclaimed the disappointed hostess, coming forward, and striving to keep up the smile.
"And why such a cold reception, my dear Anna," asked the visitor, with a warm embrace. "Am I not always the same Luschinka, to whom you vowed eternal friendship when we were school-girls together?"
"We vowed eternal friendship," sighed the Countess Wielopolska, "but since we were happy school-girls, six years have gone by, and fearful tragedies have arisen to darken our lives and embitter our young hearts."
"Pshaw!" said the lady, casting admiring glances at herself in the mirror. "I do not know why these years should be so sad to you. They have certainly improved your beauty, for I declare to you, Anna, that you were scarcely as pretty when you left school as you are today. Am I altered for the worse? My heart, as you see, has not changed, for as soon as I heard you were in Vienna, I flew to embrace you. What a pity, your family would mix themselves up in those hateful politics! You might have been the leader of fashion in Warsaw. And your stupid husband, too, to think of his killing himself on the very day of a masked ball, and spoiling the royal quadrille!"
"The royal quadrille," echoed the countess, in an absent tone; "yes, the king, General Repnin, he who put to death so many Polish nobles, and the brutal Branicki, whose pastime it is to set fire to Polish villages, they were to have been the other dancers."
"Yes and they completed their quadrille, in spite of Count Wielopolska. Bibeskoi offered himself as a substitute, and sat up the whole night to learn the figures. Bibeskoi is a delightful partner."
"A Russian," exclaimed the countess.