The row of country carts moved slowly by. One or two stopped before the shop, and the carters offered vegetables for sale. The old woman would have nothing to say to them, but waved them on irritably. Three had thus stopped and again proceeded, and an impatient grumble broke from the old lady as a fourth, a covered wagon, drew up before the door.
“We don’t want anything: go on, go on with you!” she cried shrilly.
The carter got down from his seat without heeding her, and walked round to the back.
“Here you are, sir,” he cried. “Nineteen, Konigstrasse.”
A yawn was heard, and the long sigh a man gives as he stretches himself in the mingled luxury and pain of an awakening after sound refreshing sleep.
“All right; I’ll get down,” came in answer from inside.
“Ah, it’s the count!” said the old lady to her daughter in satisfied tones. “What will he say, though, about that rogue Bauer?”
Rupert of Hentzau put his head out from under the wagon-tilt, looked up and down the street, gave the carter a couple of crowns, leapt down, and ran lightly across the pavement into the little shop. The wagon moved on.
“A lucky thing I met him,” said Rupert cheerily. “The wagon hid me very well; and handsome as my face is, I can’t let Strelsau enjoy too much of it just now. Well, mother, what cheer? And you, my pretty, how goes it with you?” He carelessly brushed the girl’s cheek with the glove that he had drawn off. “Faith, though, I beg your pardon.” he added a moment later, “the glove’s not clean enough for that,” and he looked at his buff glove, which was stained with patches of dull rusty brown.
“It’s all as when you left, Count Rupert,” said Mother Holf, “except that that rascal Bauer went out last night--”
“That’s right enough. But hasn’t he returned?”
“Hum. No signs of--anybody else?” His look defined the vague question.
The old woman shook her head. The girl turned away to hide a smile. “Anybody else” meant the king, so she suspected. Well, they should hear nothing from her. The king himself had charged her to be silent.
“But Rischenheim has come, I suppose?” pursued Rupert.
“Oh, yes; he came, my lord, soon after you went. He wears his arm in a sling.”
“Ah!” cried Rupert in sudden excitement. “As I guessed! The devil! If only I could do everything myself, and not have to trust to fools and bunglers! Where’s the count?”