Your M."
She did not suspect, when she ended her letter, very well satisfied with her dialectics, that Freyer after reading it would throw the torn fragments on the floor.
This cold, frivolous letter--this change from the mood of yesterday--this act after all her promises! He had again been deceived and disappointed, again hoped and believed in vain. All, all on which he had relied was destroyed, the moral elevation of his beloved wife, which would at last restore to her husband and child their sacred rights--was a lie, and instead, by way of compensation, came the offer--of the position of a lover.
He was to seek his wife under the cover of the darkness, as a man seeks his inamorata--he, her husband, the father of her child! "No, Countess, the steward will not steal into your castle, in order when you have enjoyed all the pleasures of the day, to afford you the excitement of a stolen intrigue.
"Though the scorn and derision of the people of my native village would wound me sorely, as you believe--I would rather work with them as a day-laborer, than to play before your lackeys the part which you assign me." This was his only answer. He was well aware that it would elicit only a shrug of the shoulders, and a pitying smile, but he could not help it.
It was evening when the countess' letter reached him, and while, by the dim light of the hanging lamp, in mortal anguish he composed at the bedside of the feverish child this clumsy and unfortunately mis-spelled reply, the folding-doors of the brilliantly lighted dining-room in the Wildenau palace, were thrown open and the prince offered his arm to the countess.
She was her brilliant self again. She had taken a perfumed bath, answered the royal letter, made several sketches for new court costumes and sent them to Paris.
She painted with unusual skill, and the little water-color figures which she sent to her modistes, were real works of art, far superior to those in the fashion journals.
"Your Highness might earn your bread in this way"--said the maid flatteringly, and a strange thrill stirred the countess at these words. She had made herself a costume book, in which she had painted all the toilettes she had worn since her entrance into society, and often found amusement in turning the leaves; what memories the sight of the old clothes evoked! From the heavy silver wrought brocade train of old Count Wildenau's young bride, down to the airy little summer gown which she had worn nine years ago in Ammergau. From the stiff, regulation court costume down to the simple woolen morning gown in which she had that morning spent hours of torture on account of that Ammergau "delusion." But at the maid's words she shut the book as if startled and rose: "I will give you the dress I wore this morning, but on condition that I never see it."
"Your Highness is too kind, I thank you most humbly," said the delighted woman, kissing the sleeve of the countess' combing-mantle--she would not have ventured to kiss her hand.