And there came up to her the loveliest little lady in all the empire; an old lady, but so delicate, so charming, so pretty, so fragile, that she seemed lovelier than all the young ones; a very fairy godmother, covered up in lace and fur, and leaning on a gold-headed cane, and wearing red shoes with high gilt heels, and smiling with serene blue eyes, as though she had just stepped down out of a pictured copy of Cinderella, and could change common pumpkins into gilded chariots, and mice into horses, at a wish.
She was the Princess Ottilie of Lilienhöhe, and had once been head of a religious house.
'Her Majesty is so right!' she said once more, with emphasis.
The Countess Wanda turned and smiled, rather with her eyes than with her lips.
'It would not become my loyal affection to say she could be wrong. But still, I know myself, and I know the world very well, and I far prefer Hohenszalras to it.'
'Hohenszalras is all very well in the summer and autumn,' said Princess Ottilie, with a glance of anything but love at the great fantastic solemn pile; 'but for a woman of your age and your possessions to pass your days talking to farmers and fishermen, poring over books, perplexing yourself as to whether it is right for you to accept wealth that comes from such a source of danger to human life as your salt mines—it is absurd, it is ludicrous. You are made for something more than a political economist; you should be in the great world.'
'I prefer my solitude and my liberty.'
'Liberty! Who or what could dictate to you in the world? You reigned there once; you would always reign there.'
'Social life is a bondage, as an empress's is. It denies one the greatest luxury of life—solitude.'
'Certainly, if you love solitude so much, you have your heart's desire here. It is an Alvernia! It is a Mount Athos! It is a snow-entombed paraclete, a hermitage, only tempered by horses!' said the Princess, with a little angry laugh.