ill-favoured woman. Malevolence sat in the creases of her painted
face, and peered from her mean eyes. Yet, such as she was, the
Elector Ernest loved her. His son's taste for ugly women would
appear to have been hereditary.

Between the Countess and Sophia there was a deadly feud. The
princess had mortally offended her father-in-law's favourite. Not
only had she never troubled to dissemble the loathing which that
detestable woman inspired in her, but she had actually given it
such free and stinging expression as had provoked against Madame
von Platen the derision of the court, a derision so ill-concealed
that echoes of it had reached its object, and made her aware of
the source from whence it sprang.

It was into this atmosphere of hostility that the advent of the
elegant, romantic Koenigsmark took place. He found the stage set
for comedy of a grim and bitter kind, which he was himself, by
his recklessness, to convert into tragedy.

It began by the Countess von Platen's falling in love with him.
It was some time before he suspected it, though heaven knows he
did not lack for self-esteem. Perhaps it was this very self-
esteem that blinded him here to the appalling truth. Yet in the
end understanding came to him. When the precise significance of
the fond leer of that painted harridan's repellent coquetry was
borne in upon him he felt the skin of his body creep and roughen
But he dissembled craftily. He was a venal scamp, after all, and
in the court of Hanover he saw opportunities to employ his gifts
and his knowledge of the great world in such a way as to win to
eminence. He saw that the Elector's favourite could be of use to