Hedwig moved, a little impatiently, but as the Countess went on, she listened. After all, Nikky, too, came from the mountains. She saw it all--the great herds moving with deliberate eagerness already sniffing the green slopes above, and the star of the distant lantern. She could even hear the thin note of the bell. And because she was sorry for the Countess, who was homesick, and perhaps because just then she had to speak to some one, she turned to her at last with the thing that filled her mind.
“This marriage,” she said bitterly. “Is it talked about? Am I the only one in the palace who has not known about it?”
“Only what I heard to-night. Of course, there are always rumors.”
“As to the other, the matter my mother referred to,” Hedwig held her head very high, “I--she was unjust. Am I never to have any friends?”
The Countess turned and, separating the curtains, surveyed the room within. Annunciata was asleep, and beyond, Hilda was playing dreamily, and very softly, as behooves one whose bedtime is long past. When the Countess dropped the curtain, she turned abruptly to Hedwig.
“Friends, Highness? One may have friends, of course. It is not friendship they fear.”
“A lover,” said the Countess softly. “It is impossible to see Captain Larisch in your presence, and not realize--”
“And not realize, Highness, that he is in love with you.”
“How silly!” said the Princess Hedwig, with glowing eyes.
“But Highness!” implored the Countess. “If only you would use a little caution. Open defiance is its own defeat.”
“I am not ashamed of what I do,” said Hedwig hotly.
“Ashamed! Of course not. But things that are harmless in others, in your position--you are young. You should have friends, gayety. I am,” she smiled grimly in the darkness, “not so old myself but that I can understand.”
“Who told my mother that I was having tea with--with Prince Otto?”
“These things get about. Where there is no gossip, there are plenty to invent it. And--pardon, Highness--frankness, openness, are not always understood.”
Hedwig stood still. The old city was preparing for sleep. In the Place a few lovers loitered, standing close, and the faint tinkling of a bell told of the Blessed Sacrament being carried through the streets to some bedside of the dying. Soon the priest came into view, walking rapidly, with his skirts flapping around his legs. Before him marched a boy, ringing a bell and carrying a lighted lamp. The priest bent his steps through the Place, and the lovers kneeled as he passed by. The Princess Hedwig bowed her head.