“YOU think that I have any influence with your King?” asked Madame von Falkenberg.
Her directness did not displease Count Piper; he saw that she was more experienced than he had thought and wise enough to be simple.
“I know you have,” he replied, then added: “His Majesty has never looked twice at any other woman.”
“His Majesty is only eighteen,” said Viktoria; her large dilated eyes looked searchingly at the shrewd, withered face of the minister. “What do you know of me?” she asked.
He had his answer ready.
“I know that you are of one of the noblest families in Gottorp—that you are a very attractive woman, and, I think, ambitious.”
“You know nothing about my husband?”
The question seemed to Count Piper quite irrelevant.
“I know that Baron von Falkenberg was killed in a duel a few months after his marriage, and that that is five years ago.”
She gave him a narrowed glance.