“But you have not yet told me whence you have these costly laces?” asked the regent in a sharper tone.
“It is a wager I have won of the good Marquis de la Chetardie,” said Elizabeth, without embarrassment, “and your highness must confess that this French ambassador has paid his wager with much taste.”
The regent had constantly become more serious and gloomy. A dark, fatal suspicion for a moment overclouded her soul, and in her usually unsuspicious mind arose the questions: “What if Ostermann was right, if Elizabeth is really conspiring, and the French ambassador is her confederate?”
“And what, if one may ask, was the subject of the wager?” she asked, with the tone of an inquisitor.
“Ah, this good marquis,” said the princess, laughing, “had never yet experienced the rigor of a Russian winter, and he would not believe that our Neva with its rushing streams and rapid current would in winter be changed into a very commodious highway. I wagered that I would convince him of the fact, and be the first to cross it on the ice; he would not believe me, and declared that I should lack the courage. Well, of course I did it, and won my wager!”
The regent had not turned her eyes from the princess while she was thus speaking. This serene calmness, this unembarrassed childishness, completely disarmed her. The dark suspicion vanished from her mind; Anna breathed freer, and laid her hand upon her heart as if she would restrain its violent beating. The letter of Lynar slightly rustled under her hand.
A ray of sunshine became visible in Anna’s face; she thought of her beloved; she felt his presence, and immediately all the vapors of mistrust were scattered—Anna feared no more, she suspected no more, she again became cheerful and happy—for she thought of her distant lover, his affectionate words rested upon her bosom—how, therefore, could she feel anger?
She only now recollected that she had intended to warn Elizabeth. She therefore threw her arms around the neck of the princess, and, sitting with her upon the divan, said: “Do you know, Elizabeth, that you have many enemies at my court, and that they would excite my suspicions against you?”
“Ah, I may well believe they would be glad to do so, but they cannot,” said Elizabeth, laughing; “I am a foolish, trifling woman, who, unfortunately for them, do nothing to my enemies that can render me suspected, as, in reality, I do nothing at all. I am indolent, Anna, very indolent; you ought to have raised me better, my dear lady regent!”
And with an amiable roguishness Elizabeth kissed the tips of Anna’s fingers.