'If one could force oneself to love by any pilgrimage or penance,' she thought, 'there are none I would not take upon me to be able to love Egon.'
As she stood thoughtfully there on the doorway of her great castle, the sweet linnet-like voice of the Princess Ottilie came on her ear. It said, a little shrilly: 'You are always looking for a four-leaved shamrock. In that sort of search life slips away unperceived; one is very soon left alone with one's dead leaves.'
Wanda von Szalras turned and smiled.
'I am not afraid of being left alone,' she said. 'I shall have my people and my forests always.'
Then, apprehensive lest she should have seemed thankless and cold of heart, she turned caressingly to Madame Ottilie.
'Nay, I could not bear to lose you, my sweet fairy godmother. Think me neither forgetful nor ungrateful.'
'You could never be one or the other to me. But I shall not live, like a fairy godmother, for ever. Before I die I would fain see you content like others with the shamrocks as nature has made them.'
'I think there are few people as content as I am,' said the Countess Wanda, and said the truth.
'You are content with yourself, not with others. You will pardon me if I say there is a great difference between the two,' replied the Princess Ottilie, with a little smile that was almost sarcastic on her pretty small features.
'You mean that I have a great deal of vanity and no sympathy?'