And weeping aloud, Elizabeth threw herself upon the divan. A low knock at the door recalled her attention from her angry grief. Rising, she bade the person at the door to enter.
It was Lestocq, the privy councillor and president—Lestocq, the confidant of the empress, who came with a joyful face and cheerful smile.
Elizabeth felt annoyed by this cheerfulness of her physician. With an angry frown she turned her back upon him.
“Why were you not at the court ball last evening?” she then roughly said.
“I was there,” answered Lestocq.
“Ah, that is not true,” cried the empress with vehemence, glad at least to have some one on whom she could discharge her anger. “It is false, I say; no one saw you there! Ah, you dare, then, to impose a falsehood upon your empress? You would—”
“I was at the court ball,” interposed Lestocq; “I saw and noted all that occurred there. I saw that my empress beamed in all the splendor of beauty, and yet with her amiable modesty she thought Eleonore Lapuschkin handsomer than herself. I read in Elizabeth’s noble brow that she was pained by this, and that she promised to punish the presumption of the insolent countess.”
“And to what end have you read all that,” responded Elizabeth, with vehemence, “to what end, since you are so sluggish a servant that you make no effort to fulfil any wish of your mistress? To what end, since you are so disregardful of your word as not to hold even your oath sacred?”
“I was at the ball precisely because I remembered my oath,” said Lestocq, “because I was intent upon redeeming my word and delivering over to you this Countess Lapuschkin as a criminal! But you could not recognize me, as I was in the disguise of a lackey of the Countess Eleonore Lapuschkin.”
Elizabeth springing up from her seat, stared with breathless curiosity into Lestocq’s face.