"Strange man!" thought she. "How can so much mildness in private life be reconciled with public sternness and despotism?" She fell at once into a reverie, and gradually forgetting the king and thinking of herself, retraced confusedly the events of the previous evening. She began to weep.
"What is the matter, signora?" said the maid, who was a kind soul, and an indifferently diffuse talker. "Are you going to cry again, as you did when you went to bed. This is enough to break one's heart; and the king, who was at the door when he heard you, shook his head two or three times, as if he was much distressed. Yet, signora, many would envy you. The king does not court everybody. They say he courts no one, yet it is very certain that he is in love with you."
"In love? What do you say?" said Porporina, shuddering. "Never say such an improper and absurd thing again. The king in love with me? Great God!"
"God grant he may not be! He, however, neither is nor will be. What roll is this, Catharine?"
"A servant brought it early in the morning."
"A person picked up in the streets. At last, though, he told me he had been employed by the servants of a certain Count of St. Germain, who came hither yesterday."
As soon as Porporina was alone, she opened the roll, which she found contained a parchment, covered with strange and unintelligible characters. She had heard much of the Count of Saint Germain, but did not know him. She examined the manuscript carefully, and as she could not understand it, and could not perceive why a person with whom she had never had any acquaintance, should send her an enigma to unravel, she fancied that he was mad. As she examined this document more closely, a separate note fell out, and she read: "The Princess Amelia of Prussia takes much interest in divination and in horoscopes. Give her this parchment, and you will be certain to secure her protection and friendship." To these lines there was no signature, the hand was unknown, and the roll bore no address. She was amazed that the Count of Saint Germain, to reach the Princess Amelia, had come to her, who had never met her; and thinking that her servant had made some mistake, began to fold it up, for the purpose of returning it. When she took up the sheet of coarse paper, which had been around it, she observed there was music printed on the other side. An old recollection recurred to her; to look at one corner of the sheet for a mark, which had been agreed on--to recognise the deep pencil lines--to see that the music was a part of a piece which she had given away, as a token of remembrance, eighteen months before--was but the work of an instant. The emotion which she experienced at the remembrance of an absent and suffering friend, made her forget her own sorrows. She was only anxious to know what was to be done with the manuscript, and why she had been charged with transmitting it to the princess. Was the object to secure for her that personage's favor and protection? For that Porporina had neither the want nor the desire. Was it for the purpose of establishing a communication between the princess and the prisoner, which might be useful to the latter? She hesitated. In her doubt she recollected the proverb, "beware;" she then remembered that there were both good and bad proverbs, some of which came to the aid of prudent selfishness and others to bold devotion. She got up at once, saying to herself: