CHAPTER LX. PRUSSIA’S DECLARATION OF WAR.
King Frederick William III. had not yet left his cabinet to-day. He had retired thither early in the morning in order to work. Maps, plans of battles, and open books lay on the tables, and the king sat in their midst with a musing, careworn air.
A gentle rap at the door aroused him from his meditations. The king raised his head and listened. The rap was repeated.
“It is Louisa,” he said to himself, and a smile overspread his features as he hastened to the door and opened it.
He had not been mistaken. It was the queen who stood before the door. Smiling, graceful, and merry as ever, she entered the cabinet and gave her hand to her husband.
“Are you angry with me, my dear friend, because I have disturbed you?” she asked, tenderly. “But, it seemed to me, you had worked enough for the state to-day and might devote a quarter of an hour to your Louisa. You know whenever I do not see you in the morning, my day lacks its genuine sunshine, and is gray and gloomy. For this reason, as you have not yet come to me to-day, I come to you. Good-morning, my king and husband!”
“Good-morning, my queen!” said the king, imprinting a kiss on the white, transparent forehead of the queen. “Add to it, good-day, my dear Louisa, for a wish from so beautiful and noble lips I hope will exorcise all evil spirits, and cause this day to become a really good one. I hope much from it.”
The king’s forehead, which the queen’s appearance had smoothed a little, became clouded again, and he assumed a grave and sombre air.
The queen saw it, and gently placed her hand on his shoulder.
“You are downcast, my friend,” she said, affectionately. “Will you not let me have my share of your grief? Is not your wife entitled to it? Or will you cruelly deprive me of what is my right? Speak to me, my husband. Let me share your grief. Confide to me what is the meaning of those clouds on your noble brow, and what absorbs your soul to such an extent that you even forgot me and your children, and deprived us of your kind morning greeting.”