“Therefore I am going to ask your help, Madame.”
Viktoria von Falkenberg moved impatiently towards the window, like a creature confined against her will.
“Are you not ashamed,” she asked, “that you cannot manage one wilful boy?”
This was so unexpected that Count Piper could think of no reply whatever.
“This King of yours,” continued the lady, “was drunk to-day, and unwashed from the chase, sat down to his food with spotted linen and muddy boots, was rude to women—I should not be proud to be his tutor.”
She had completely turned the tables on him; he had meant to tactfully reproach her with the effect of her influence on the King—to point out how Karl was drifting to disaster—and she had snatched his weapons from his hands and left him defenseless.
She threw up her head impetuously and struck her open palm on the window-pane.
“Oh, for something beautiful!” she cried, “were it but the waving of a spray of leaves against a gray sky! Your palace stifles, Count, and while we wait your King’s graciousness we lose our life!”
“It is of that I would speak to you,” said the Count, endeavoring to keep to his first point of view, “of your desires—and the King.”