She was never long in a room before she would turn to it and sit in front of it, staring into the flames or the grate ready for them.
The ladies, when alone, would sometimes dare to breathe the rumour that accounted for this; it was almost too horrid for utterance. It had to do with the manner in which Philip von Königsmarck had died.
At the usual time the chaplain came, the unalterable prayer was uttered; the ladies took up their candles, curtsied and waited for the Princess to precede them upstairs.
She, as always, went up to her cold, unadorned room, was undressed and dismissed the ladies, then stood by the great bed with the blue tapestry curtains and sent for Madame von Arlestein.
To-night she did not get into bed; she put on a blue bed-gown and went to the fire that blazed, log on log, in the open hearth, but could not do more than warm a portion of the huge draughty room.
This bedroom had been hers ever since she had been at Schloss Ahlden, and nothing in it had been altered.
The bed stood out into the room facing the fireplace, shrouded with heavy curtains and heavy draperies; either side was a sconce of silver holding five candles against the wooden walls, at the foot was a long casket for clothes and either side of that a leather chair with a fringe round the seat.
The door was to the right of the bed, the mullioned windows to the left; they were hung with dark curtains and before each of them were two more of the formal chairs.
In the corner beyond the windows was a plain dressing-table holding a few toilet articles, and behind it hung a mirror in a tortoiseshell frame.
Before the fireplace were a chair with arms in which Sophia Dorothea now sat and a stool.