Maria Theresa uttered aloud cry and sank to the floor. "Oh," sobbed she,
"I am a poor, desolate mother. My child loves me no longer!"
CHAPTER CXXXIII.
PRINCE POTEMKIN.
Prince Potemkin was just out of bed. In front of him, two pages, richly dressed, bowed down to the floor as they opened the door for him to pass into his cabinet. Behind him, two more pages held up the train of his velvet dressing-gown, which, all bedecked with jewels, came trailing behind his tall, graceful figure. Behind the pages were four valets with breakfast and Turkish pipes.
And in this wise Prince Potemkin entered his cabinet. He threw himself upon an ottoman covered with India cashmere shawls, and received from a kneeling page a cup of chocolate, which was handed to his highness upon a gold waiter set with pearls. Then, as if the cup had been too troublesome to hold, he replaced it on the waiter, and ordered the page to pour the chocolate down.
The page, apparently, was accustomed to the order, for he rose briskly from his knees, and approaching the cup to Potemkin's lips, allowed the chocolate to trickle slowly down his princely throat. Meanwhile the three pages, four valets, and six officers, who had been awaiting him in his cabinet, stood around in stiff, military attitudes, each one uncomfortably conscious that he was momentarily exposed to the possible displeasure of the mighty favorite of the mighty Czarina.
Potemkin, meanwhile, vouchsafed not a look at any one of them. After he had sipped his chocolate, and the page had dried his mouth with an embroidered napkin, he opened his lips. The valet whose duty it was to present it, stepped forward with the Turkish pipe, and depositing its magnificent golden bowl upon the Persian carpet by the ottoman, placed the amber mouth-piece between the lips of his master.
Again a dead silence; and again those stiff forms stood reverentially around, while Potemkin, with an air of ennui and satiety, watched the blue wreaths that rose from his pipe to the ceiling.
"What o'clock is it?" asked he moodily.
"Mid-day, your highness," was the prompt reply.