Platen, watching them jealously, and without any disposition to
construe the meeting innocently. Was she not the deadly enemy of
both? Had not the Princess whetted satire upon her, and had not
Koenigsmark scorned the love she proffered him, and then
unpardonably published it in a ribald story to excite the mirth
of profligates?

That evening the Countess purposefully sought her lover, the
Elector.

"Your son is away in Prussia," quoth she. "Who guards his honour
in his absence?"

"George's honour?" quoth the Elector, bulging eyes staring at the
Countess. He did not laugh, as might have been expected at the
notion of guarding something whose existence was not easily
discerned. He had no sense of humour, as his appearance
suggested. He was a short, fat man with a face shaped like a
pear--narrow in the brow and heavy in the jowl. "What the devil
do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean that this foreign adventurer, Koenigsmark, and Sophia grow
too intimate."

"Sophia!" Thick eyebrows were raised until they almost met the
line of his ponderous peruke. His face broke into malevolent
creases expressive of contempt.

"That white-faced ninny! Bah!" Her very virtue was matter for
his scorn.