“Why?” asked Aurora.
“Because I am betrothed to General Patkul,” replied the lady, without looking round.
“Romantic love—in this age!” smiled the Countess.
Mdle. D’Einsiedel daintily placed the morsel of sugar in the bird’s huge polished beak; he as daintily accepted it, and twisted round in his ring sweeping his long green tail feathers into the face of the page.
“Tell me about it,” coaxed Aurora, leaning forward so that her beautiful head peered over the gilt edge of the settee. “Tell me what it is like to be in love—in love!—in that way?”
“I am sorry for you that you do not know. Countess,” smiled Hélène D’Einsiedel, still amusing herself with the bird and not looking round.
Aurora von Königsmarck studied her with a curiosity that was not entirely without malice and envy.
The young girl (she was hardly more than seventeen) made a beautiful picture in her full rose-colored dress, seated on rose-colored cushions, with rainbow-hued silk ribbons at her slender waist, and in her loosely dressed pale hair, silk flowers; forget-me-nots and roses were amid the fine laces on her open bosom, pearls in her ears and round her throat; her delicate features shone fair with youth and health, grace and breed; she was wealthy, noble, nurtured in a corrupt and brilliant court, and she had consented to bestow her hand on a man who was no more than a political adventurer; native of a country supposed half-savage and with no particular attractions of person or manner, John Rheinhold Patkul had never been popular with the courtiers of Augustus, but he had inspired this girl with an intense devotion that no opposition could shake.
She continued with undisturbed grace to feed the parrot; behind her was a tapestry of a woodland scene, gray-green in color, which formed the background to her pale beauty which was in piquant contrast to the negro with his scarlet suit and sky-blue turban and the harsh colors of the bird.
“Well, child,” said Aurora at length, “if you will not talk——! You will marry your Livonian, and go to live in his wild country and forget about me.”