Brightly shone the light of chandelier and gueridon through the plate
glass windows of the royal palace on the Ritterholm, and most
beautifully was its brilliancy reflected by the quiet waters of the
Malar lake. The princess Ulrika Eleonore, of Hesse, gave an assembly
and card patty--and the variously adorned nobility floated through the
gilded rooms, soothing, caressing, deceiving, calumniating, fondling
and boring each other. Behind the curtains of one of the most retired
windows leaned the affectionate Georgina, gazing with anxious interest
over the lake towards the Suedermalm, where in quiet obscurity lay
before her the place where she had met and parted with her lover. Near
her sat the princess, with the governor, Baron Taube, and the elder
Gyllenstierna, at a card table.
'Is there any news from Norway?' asked Ulrika, shuffling the cards.
'From Armfelt's corps,' answered Taube, 'we have been a long time
without intelligence,--but, as a friend writes me, the king has taken
an important battery before Frederickshall.'
'It is well that some one yet holds correspondence in Sweden, said
Ulrika with bitterness, hastily dealing the cards. 'My husband is not
permitted to write openly upon the affairs of the campaign, and of the
communications of my brother nobody in the capital is permitted to have
a glimpse;--and least of all myself, who have the misfortune to be a
woman.'
'Was our loss great?' asked old Gyllenstierna, assorting his cards.
'They speak of seven hundred,' answered the governor: 'and the loss
would have been still greater and perhaps wholly in vain, had not the
king himself and a young volunteer placed themselves at the head of the
faltering troops and led them on to victory.'
A delightful anticipation thrilled the bosom of the listening Georgina.
And in the self-forgetfulness of love, she was even upon the point of
stepping forward and asking the narrator the unbecoming question of the
name of the volunteer, when the father of her beloved spared her the
pain of witnessing the courtier's contemptuous smile, by himself
putting the question.
'My informant named him Gyllenstierna,' answered Taube: 'but as your
excellency's son has gone to Armfelt's camp, I suppose I must have
misunderstood him.'
'Who knows!' murmured the old count, calling to mind the last
unavailing request of his son; and in pondering upon all the
possibilities of the case he lost his game.
'Were it not for that,' proceeded Taube, 'I should have much pleasure
in congratulating your excellency. The king advanced the brave
volunteer to the grade of captain of the guards upon the spot.'
'My hero! my Arwed!' exulted Georgina in her heart, and her white hand
waved a fond kiss towards the west.
'Such transient gleams of military success give me more anxiety than
pleasure,' said Ulrika. 'They decide not the main question, and serve
only to increase my brother's obstinacy. His game is lost beyond
remedy. Continued misfortune would finally open his eyes and induce him
to take the only course by which he can save himself.'
'That would have happened long ago,' whispered Taube to her, 'did not
baron Goertz, through his _fata morgana_, know how to keep up his
sinking hopes.'
'Very true!' said Gyllenstierna. 'And had it not been for his
experiment of debasing the coin, this campaign would have been
impossible.'
'Indeed,' added Taube: 'were the old heathen gods, whom he has conjured
up from the vasty deep, to bring national bankruptcy upon Sweden, what
would the foreigner care?'
'I know not among men one whom I so cordially hate as this Goertz,'
said Ulrica in an under tone, and her eyes gleamed so fiercely that
Georgina, who from her concealment saw the look, shrunk with fear,
although she did not hear the words that accompanied it.
A chamberlain in service now announced to Ulrika that baron Goertz, who
had just arrived from Aland, and was passing through Stockholm on his
way to Frederickshall, begged permission to wait upon her royal
highness.
'It is not granted!' said Ulrika with cold disdain.
'I know not,' whispered Taube to her, 'if your highness would do well
to render your displeasure palpable to this cunning man. The mortified
ambition of a parvenu is revengeful, and Goertz proceeds hence directly
to his majesty.'
'Am I not mistress even in my own apartment!' cried Ulrika with
vehemence. 'It has come to a fine pass!' She arose from the table and
laid down her cards. 'I am indisposed,' said she to the chamberlain:
'am about to withdraw to my chamber, and can see no one.'
The servant bowed and retired to deliver the ungracious message. The
princess called her ladies and hurried from the saloon, which was soon
filled with the timid murmurs of the courtiers. Taube took the arm of
Gyllenstierna, and walked up and down the room in a low and anxious
conversation with him.
'My poor father! how hast thou with thy warm, and generous heart,
strayed to this cold and hostile kind!' cried Georgina, who had closely
observed the last scene;--and, careless of the remarks which her
disregard of etiquette might elicit, she hastened from the assembly to
greet her beloved father.