“I know,” interrupted Aurora, curbing some impatience; it seemed to her that Augustus went round and round the same points, in a confused manner, which was irritating to her own clear mind that looked ahead to ultimate issues. “But the trial might be made.”
“It would have to be secret,” said the King-Elector, “and kept very carefully from the ears of Patkul and the Czar.”
“Naturally,” replied the Countess drily. “The Czar will be easily hoodwinked; as for Patkul, it is he who is the cause of all this trouble, if need be he must be sacrificed.”
“Yes, Patkul, this adventurer who has embroiled us all!”
“You mean that I should surrender him to Karl?”
“God forbid!” cried the King-Elector hastily.
“Oh, Sweden would be merciful,” said Aurora impatiently, “as I told you, it is his rôle.”
“He would not be merciful to Patkul,” replied Augustus, “who, besides, is Peter’s envoy, and sacred.”
“Oh, bah!” exclaimed Aurora, with a flash of her gorgeous eyes. “What is the Czar to you, or what has he done for you that he should be considered?”
“My honor and the law of nations----” began Augustus.
The Countess speedily demolished this masculine defense.
“Where,” she asked acutely, “was either, when you attacked the King of Sweden?”
As this action had been contrary to both, the King-Elector had nothing to reply; rather pale, he stared at the ground.
“You see,” added Aurora, anxious to soothe now that she had silenced, “it is not, and never has been, any question of any law or any honor, but simply of each man for himself in a desperate game.”
“We need not raise the question of Patkul,” he said, with the evasion of weakness.
“We must,” replied the Countess. “For I believe it will be the first thing the King of Sweden will demand, and we must know how to answer him.”
Augustus did not speak; he did not think it possible that he could ever come so low as to deliver the man who trusted him to his enemy, but he thought that Karl might be pacified with some apparent submission and Patkul saved nevertheless.
“As you said yourself,” continued Aurora, “matters are desperate, and we cannot pause for niceties.”
She cared nothing herself for anyone but the man who, at once her master and her slave, was essential to her power and therefore to her happiness; the terrors of war, the miseries of the peasantry, the sufferings of the civilian populace, the bloodshed, the families ruined, the lands laid desolate, did not touch Aurora von Königsmarck; her gay and volatile nature did not even glance at the dark side of life.