When she had closed the door, the expression of Count Schulenberg's face was not quite the same.
"The fierce countess is about to be tamed," thought he. "I shall win my bet, and humble this insolent beauty. Let her rule if she must, until we reach Paris; but there I will repay her, and her chains shall not be light. Really, this is a piquant adventure. I am making a delightful wedding-tour, without the bore of the marriage-ceremony, at the expense of the most beautiful woman in Europe; and to heighten the piquancy of the affair, I am to receive two thousand louis d'ors on my return to Vienna. Here she comes."
"I am ready," said Margaret, coming in, followed by her maid, who held her mistress's travelling-bag.
Count Schulenberg darted forward to offer his arm, but she waved him away.
"Follow me," said she, passing at once through the secret opening. Schulenberg followed, "sighing like a furnace," and looking daggers at the confidante, who in her turn looked sneeringly at him. A few moments after they entered the carriage. The windows of the Hotel Esterhazy were as brilliantly illuminated as ever, while the master of the house slumbered peacefully. And yet a shadow had fallen upon the proud escutcheon which surmounted the silken curtains of his luxurious bed—the shadow of that disgrace with which his outraged wife had threatened him!
CHAPTER CV.
JOSEPH IN FRANCE.
A long train of travelling carriages was about to cross the bridge which spans the Rhine at Strasburg, and separates Germany from France. It was the suite of the Count of Falkenstein, who was on his way to visit his royal sister.
Thirty persons, exclusive of Count Rosenberg and two other confidential friends, accompanied the emperor. Of course, the incognito of a Count of Falkenstein, who travelled with such a suite, was not of much value to him; so that he had endured all the tedium of an official journey. This was all very proper in the eyes of Maria Theresa, who thought it impossible for Jove to travel without his thunder. But Jove himself, as everybody knows, was much addicted to incognitos, and so was his terrene representative, the Emperor of Austria.
The imperial cortege, then, was just about to pass from Germany to France. It was evening, and the fiery gold of the setting sun was mirrored in the waves of the Rhine which with gentle murmur were toying with the greensward that sloped gracefully down to the water's edge. The emperor gave the word to halt, and rising from his seat, looked back upon the long line of carriages that followed in his wake.