This was the _coup de grâce_. Otto had now to comfort and compose her as he could, and before many words, the money was accepted. Between the woman and the weak man such was the inevitable end. Madame von Rosen instantly composed her sobs. She thanked him with a fluttering voice, and resumed her place upon the bench, at the far end from Otto. ‘Now you see,’ she said, ‘why I bade you keep the thief at distance, and why I came alone. How I trembled for my treasure!’
‘Madam,’ said Otto, with a tearful whimper in his voice, ‘spare me! You are too good, too noble!’
‘I wonder to hear you,’ she returned. ‘You have avoided a great folly. You will be able to meet your good old peasant. You have found an excellent investment for a friend’s money. You have preferred essential kindness to an empty scruple; and now you are ashamed of it! You have made your friend happy; and now you mourn as the dove! Come, cheer up. I know it is depressing to have done exactly right; but you need not make a practice of it. Forgive yourself this virtue; come now, look me in the face and smile!’
He did look at her. When a man has been embraced by a woman, he sees her in a glamour; and at such a time, in the baffling glimmer of the stars, she will look wildly well. The hair is touched with light; the eyes are constellations; the face sketched in shadows—a sketch, you might say, by passion. Otto became consoled for his defeat; he began to take an interest. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I am no ingrate.’
‘You promised me fun,’ she returned, with a laugh. ‘I have given you as good. We have had a stormy _scena_.’
He laughed in his turn, and the sound of the laughter, in either case, was hardly reassuring.
‘Come, what are you going to give me in exchange,’ she continued, ‘for my excellent declamation?’
‘Whatever I will? Upon your honour? Suppose I asked the crown?’ She was flashing upon him, beautiful in triumph.
‘Shall I ask the crown?’ she continued. ‘Nay; what should I do with it? Grünewald is but a petty state; my ambition swells above it. I shall ask—I find I want nothing,’ she concluded. ‘I will give you something instead. I will give you leave to kiss me—once.’
Otto drew near, and she put up her face; they were both smiling, both on the brink of laughter, all was so innocent and playful; and the Prince, when their lips encountered, was dumbfoundered by the sudden convulsion of his being. Both drew instantly apart, and for an appreciable time sat tongue-tied. Otto was indistinctly conscious of a peril in the silence, but could find no words to utter. Suddenly the Countess seemed to awake. ‘As for your wife—’ she began in a clear and steady voice.