The great man had arrived at midday, dined with his gentlemen, who had afterwards set off on some journey to the southward. Left alone, his men-servants dismissed for the time being, the Duke amused himself by making plans and calculations on sheets of paper, also by walking to and fro, and peering out of the misty casement. The innkeeper took it into his head that the Duke was expecting some one.
And in the late afternoon, just as the Duke had called for candles, the door opened and the man-servant announced "the Countess Ottilie von Thüringen."
From a hood of deep blue velvet edged with sable, a slight colour in her cheeks from the wind, the mysterious eyes looked out expectant and almost timid, if timidity had not been almost a stranger to the woman to whom they belonged.
The grave cold face of Wallenstein relaxed into a smile of welcome. He bowed and kissed her hand.
"So you are on your way, Countess Ottilie! 'Tis a long while since we met."
"Six months! Albrecht! Six months of inglorious rust!" There was an undertone of reproach, very faint, perhaps scarcely meant. She was a woman.
The brow of Wallenstein resumed its furrows.
"You at least have not rusted," he said. "Quicksilver could rust as soon. You have been busy, my confederate. But indeed I have not been exactly idle. And we may say truthfully that our efforts have succeeded."
"In so far that Protestant Germany is aroused from end to end by the torch of Gustavus, and that the Catholic League was never so downcast as now."
"You say rightly that Gustavus applied the torch, but it is we who have gathered the dry faggots together and spread them on the common hearth!"