“They say, too, that he follows you everywhere—and that your maid Henriette helps you to leave the palace in secret to meet him.”
She heard his words, and her white lips trembled.
“They also declare,” he went on in a low voice, “that your love of the country is only because you are able to meet him without any one knowing, that your journey here to Vienna is on account of him—that he has followed you here.”
She nodded, without uttering a word.
“The Count has, no doubt, followed your Highness, indiscreetly if I may say so, for I recognised him last night dining alone at Breying’s.”
“He did not see you?” she exclaimed anxiously.
“No. I took good care not to be seen. I had no desire that my journey here should be known, or I should be suspected. I return to-night at midnight.”
“And to be frank, Steinbach, you believe that all this has reached my husband’s ears?” she whispered in a hard, strained voice.
“All that is detrimental to your Highness reaches the Crown Prince,” was his reply to the breathless woman, “and certainly not without embellishments. That is why I implore of you to be circumspect—why I am here to tell you of the plot to disgrace you in the people’s eyes.”
“But the people themselves are now speaking of—of the Count?” she said in a low, uncertain voice, quite changed from her previous musical tones when first they met.