"Own to him that you have friends on whose aid and assistance you can count, but let him not suspect who these friends are. Then lead the conversation to the Media Nocte—But, my heavens!" exclaimed the count, interrupting himself, while he looked as if accidentally at the clock, "it only wants now a few minutes of two o'clock, and the Electoral Prince will certainly come punctually, and therefore will be here directly. I have written out all that it is necessary that you will have the complaisance to do between this and to-morrow. Read it over at your leisure, and impress it rightly upon your mind. Here is the paper, and may my writing find a hearing and favor! If such be the case, as I hope and desire, then will your highness have the goodness to open your window a little at ten o'clock and display from it an orange-colored ribbon. All the rest will take care of itself, and what your highness has to do is on the paper. I hasten to withdraw, that your highness may have time to read my writing."
"But if the Prince should come now?" asked Ludovicka anxiously—"if he should see a man descending from my window?"
"You are right, Princess; that is to be dreaded; and I, too, have considered that. I will not leave through the window."
"Not through the window? But in what other way would you—"
"Go away, would you say? By yonder door! I know perfectly well that it leads into the Princess's private apartment, and thence into the antechamber. Oh, I know the Castle Doornward well, for is it not the residence of the Electress of the Palatinate and her fair daughter the Princess? Therefore I have had drawn out for myself an exact plan of it. Moreover, your waiting maid Alice awaits me in the antechamber. Forgive her for not having been able to withstand the persuasions of her compatriot, the magician Ducato. Alice will permit me to slip out of the castle by a back door. And now, adored Princess and exalted Electress of the future, permit your most faithful and devoted servant ere he depart once more to press your beloved hand to his lips, and to tell you how inexpressibly happy—and, alas! how inexpressibly wretched—it makes him that he can and—must assist in marrying the Princess Ludovicka to the Electoral Prince."
With a bewitching smile the Princess held out her hand to him. "Count d'Entragues," she said, "I shall be eternally grateful to you for your self-sacrifice and good faith. I shall esteem myself happy if some day I may find an opportunity of proving this to you. Farewell!"
He pressed a long, glowing kiss upon her hand. "Farewell!" he said. "When
I see you again, Princess, I shall accompany you to the altar, and must
witness the transformation of the Princess Ludovicka into an Electoral
Princess of Brandenburg, and in my heart will be prayers, but also tears!
Farewell!"
He sprang up, crossed the room with light, quick steps, unbolted the door, and vanished behind the curtain. The Princess watched him until he had disappeared, and, after she had convinced herself that he was actually gone, and had bolted the door again, she took out the paper and read over its contents slowly and with most serious attention.
As she read, brighter and brighter became her face, constantly more radiant the smile upon her rosy lips. "Yes," she cried, after she had twice read it through, "that will do—it shall be so! To-morrow in the Media Nocte I will—"
A loud shrill whistle sounded. "He comes!" whispered she, "he comes!"