"You must take what I can offer--I am all alone, you know."
"All alone!" she repeated with a happy smile which he could see by the starlight shining through the open window. Another kiss--a long silent embrace was exchanged.
"Now let me light a lamp, that I may take off your cloak and make you comfortable! Or, do you mean to spend the night so?" He was bewitching in his mournful jesting, his sad happiness.
"Ah, it is so long since I have seen you thus," Madeleine murmured. "World, I can laugh at you now!" cried an exultant voice in her heart, for the old love, the old spell was hers once more. And as he again appeared before her in his mild greatness and beauty, she desired to show herself his peer--display herself to him in all the dazzling radiance of her beauty. As he turned to light the lamp she let the heavy cloak fall and stood in all her loveliness, her snowy neck framed by the dark velvet bodice, on which all the stars in the firmament outside seemed to have fallen and clung to rest there for a moment.
Freyer turned with the lamp in his hand--his eyes flashed--a faint cry escaped his lips! She waited smiling for an expression of delight--but he remained motionless, gazing at her as if he beheld a ghost, while the glance fixed upon the figure whose diamonds sparkled with a myriad rays constantly grew more gloomy, his bearing more rigid--a deep flush suffused his pallid face. "And this is my wife?" at last fell in a muffled, expressionless tone from his lips. "No--it is not she."
The countess did not understand his meaning--she imagined that the superb costume so impressed him that he dared not approach her, and she must show him by redoubled tenderness that he was not too lowly for this superb woman. "It is your wife, indeed it is, and all this splendor veils a heart which is yours, and yours alone!" she cried, throwing herself on his breast and clasping her white arms around him.
But with a violent gesture he released himself, drawing back a step. "No--no--I cannot, I will not touch you in such a guise as this."
"Freyer!" the countess angrily exclaimed, gazing at him as if to detect some trace of insanity in his features. "What does this mean?"
"Have you--been in society--in that dress?" he asked in a low tone, as if ashamed for her.
"Yes. And in my impatience to hasten to you I did not stop to change it. I thought you would be pleased."