Since she had, in the height of her pride, lowered herself before Karl XII, she had lost something of her beauty and all of her magnificence.
Like everything belonging to Augustus, she was tarnished by continual ill-fortune; nor did she care for the neatness and order possible even in poverty; she would be either splendid or careless, and disdained those shifts that labor to cover deficiency with artifice.
She who had blazed in Dresden as the most gorgeous lady of the court, now showed in a negligent undress of soiled sprigged silk over a petticoat of yellow taffetas, with her rich hair fastened in a loose knot without either art or neatness; her beauty was not of that radiant youthfulness that can overcome these disadvantages, and she looked as damaged in her fortunes, as eclipsed in her charms, as was proper to the favorite of a fallen prince.
In silence Augustus handed her the letter from Karl.
He had a great faith in her intelligence, and even now cherished a hope that her wit would point out some way of escape from his dilemma that had not occurred to either Pfingsten or himself.
Aurora read the letter and her nostrils dilated.
Not Augustus himself knew a bitterer humiliation than she experienced as she read the conqueror’s terms.
She hated Karl with all the hatred of which her passionate nature was capable.
As he had so easily resisted her fascinations, so rudely refused her advances, so completely scorned her, she did not regard him as a man, but as some soulless creature, a werlion or wertiger sent on earth to plague mankind.
She fumbled at her laces with a quivering hand and darted a keen glance at the gloomy countenance of the Elector.