A maid was just lighting the candles in their tall sticks of tortoise-shell and gold, another was drawing the curtains of sapphire-blue velvet across the windows, so shutting out the mournful prospect of the winter evening.
Hélène stood stupidly in the middle of the room looking at the fire; she had neither gloves nor muff, and her little hands hung red and cold at her side.
Her face was pale and distressed, the black beaver hat falling carelessly over her tangled curls, her pelisse was roughly dragged together with a silver clasp fastened crookedly, and she wore her thin house shoes which were slightly stained with dirty snow.
“Come, child,” said Aurora kindly. “This grief and agitation are useless. Nothing has happened.”
“Things are terrible,” replied Hélène in a low, hurried voice. “You know yourself that all goes as if to disaster. The armies broken, the country in a turmoil—and he is leaving me.”
On these childish words a sob broke her voice, and tears filled her eyes already reddened with weeping.
She seemed indifferent to the presence of the Countess and the two chamber women, and continued to stare into the fire, raising her clasped trembling hands to her quivering lips while the tears fell on to her knuckles.
Aurora wanted to say “Patkul is safe,” but the words stuck in her throat, even though she quieted her conscience by the resolve that by some underhand means the Livonian must be saved.
She shivered a little in her warm coat, and spread out her fair hands to the fire.
“It is hard for all of us,” she said evenly. “Do you think, dear, that I like Varsovia? And as for the Elector he is more ill-natured than I have ever known him; I wish he would go to the war and rid me of his moods. These wretched Poles are giving a great deal of trouble, and there is no denying that for the moment the King of Sweden has the advantage.”