CHAPTER IX.

THE FIRST DISAPPOINTMENT.


A few hours later the equipage of Prince Henry arrived in the court-
yard of Monbijou, and the prince demanded of his mother, the widowed
queen, permission to pay her his respects.

Sophia Dorothea was suffering greatly. The gout, that slow but fatal
disease, which does not kill at once, but limb by limb, had already
paralyzed the feet of the poor queen, and confined her to her chair.
To-day her sufferings were greater than usual, and she was not able
to leave her bed. Therefore, she could not receive the prince as a
queen, but only as a mother, without ceremony or etiquette. That the
meeting might be entirely without constraint, the maids of honor
left the queen's room, and as the prince entered, he saw the ladies
disappearing by another door; the last one had just made her
farewell bow, and was kissing respectfully the queen's hand.

This was Louise von Kleist, for whose sake the prince had come, and
for whom his heart throbbed painfully. He could have cried aloud for
joy as he saw her in her bewildering loveliness, her luxuriant
beauty. He longed to seize her hands and cover them with kisses--to
tell her how much he had suffered, how much he was still suffering
for her sake.

But Louise appeared not to have seen him, not to have noticed his