With the New Year Madame Ottilie received another letter from him. It was brief, grateful, and touching. It concluded with a message of ceremonious homage to the châtelaine of Hohenszalras. Of his entrance into political life it said nothing. With the letter came a screen of gilded leather which he had painted himself, with passages from the history of S. Julian Hospitador.
'It will seem worthless,' he said, 'where every chamber is a museum of art; but accept it as a sign of my grateful and imperishable remembrance.'
The Princess was deeply touched and sensibly flattered.
'You will admit, at least,' she said, with innocent triumph, 'that he knows how to make gratitude graceful.'
'It is an ex-voto, and you are his patron saint, dear mother,' said the Countess Wanda, with a smile but the smile was one of approval. She thought his silence on his own successes and on her name was in good taste. And the screen was so admirably painted that the Venetian masters might have signed it without discredit.
'May I give him no message from you,' said the Princess, as she was about to write her reply.
Her niece hesitated.
'Say we have read his first speech, and are glad of his success,' she said, after a few moments' reflection.
'Nothing more?'
'What else should I say?' replied Wanda, with some irritation.