"And nevertheless you could tear yourself away" said the Countess ironically.
"I had to go," sighed the princess. "I am on my way to Italy. You see, ma chere, it would have been inconvenient and might have made me ridiculous to go out in society, meeting my husbands with their two wives, and I—abandoned by both these faithless men. I should have been obliged to marry a third time, but my heart revolted against it." "Then you travel alone to Italy?"
"By no means, mon amour, I am travelling with the most bewitching creature!—my lover. Oh, Anna, he is the handsomest man I ever laid my eyes upon; the most delightful! and he paints so divinely that the Empress Catharine has appointed him her court painter. I love him beyond all expression; I adore him! You need not smile, Anna, que voulez-vous? Le coeur toujours vierge pour un second amour."
"If you love him so dearly, why, then, does your heart revolt against a marriage with him?" asked the Countess Anna.
"I told you he was a painter, and not a nobleman," answered the ex-princess, impatiently. "One loves an artist, but cannot marry him. Do you suppose I would be so ridiculous as to give up my title to be the respectable wife of a painter? The Princess Lubomirski a Madame Wand, simple Wand! Oh, no! I shall travel with him, but I will not marry him."
"Then go!" exclaimed the Countess Anna, rising, and casting looks of scorn upon the princess. "Degenerate daughter of a degenerate fatherland, go, and drag your shame with you to Italy! Go, and enjoy your sinful lusts, while Poland breathes her last, and vultures prey upon her dishonored corpse. But take with you the contempt of every Polish heart, that beats with love for the land that gave you birth!"
She turned, and without a word of farewell, proudly left the room. The princess raised her brow and opened her pretty mouth in bewilderment; then rising, and going up to the mirror, she smoothed her hair and began to laugh.
"What a pathetic fool!" said she. "Anybody might know that her mother had been an actress. To think of the daughter of an artiste getting up a scene because a princess will not stoop to marry a painter! Queulle betise!"
With these words she went back to her carriage and drove off.