Hélène did not quite understand.
“Little silly!” laughed Aurora. “Do you not know that I am incapable of loving any man as you love your Patkul?”
“You pretend very well,” said Hélène, with a demureness that might have hid a touch of malice.
Aurora was silent; yes, she could pretend very well, she had often marveled at that herself, often been genuinely amazed at the strength and sincerity of the emotion she could raise in others and her own lack of response; she would have liked to have felt, if only for half an hour, any adoration for any man equal to that this girl felt for General Patkul; she knew that such an emotion would have been entirely in opposition with all her plans and schemes, but in her avid desire for life and knowledge, she would have given much for the curiosity of the experience.
However, she put the thought out of her mind, moved quickly, and glanced again at the letter from Augustus.
She was vexed that he was too ill to take the command of his armies in person, the more so as she guessed this illness to be consequent on his debauches with the Czar at Birsen; Peter to her was a monster, she could not forgive in Augustus the weakness that made him the companion of his ally’s vulgar orgies.
“Yes, ’twere better to be a man now, free on horseback,” she said. “This waiting amid one’s toys is an ugly part of a woman’s life”—she paused, then added quickly, “it must be hateful to belong to a man who is defeated.”
Hélène gazed at her with startled eyes.
“You do not think that Saxony will be defeated, Countess?”
“He has been defeated already,” replied Aurora. “And do you think he has very much chance? The savage Muscovite is no use—every battle will be a Narva for him. Denmark is silenced—and the King of Sweden is great.”