Instinctively I thought of flight, but his eyes wouldn't let me rise. From that moment on he dropped my title. "Stay," he whispered, "I beseech you, stay. Don't you see that I love you to distraction? I have kept silent these many months. Now I must talk. I love thee, Louise." I tried in vain to collect my thoughts while his love talk fanned my blood. Finally I managed to say: "Can't you see that you are playing _va banque_?" "I know, but it doesn't interest me. Let my career be wrecked, I care not; I've got only one thought in the world--thee, only one wish--thee. And I must either love thee or die." I turned my eyes away and rose abruptly. As he bowed to kiss my hand, he whispered, still "_thou'ing_" me: "I expect you tomorrow at the end of the Grand Boulevard. Come when you please. I will wait all day." * * * * * And here I am thinking, thinking, thinking. "The end of the Boulevard" is the beginning of Dresden's _Bois_. Does this madman really suppose that Her Imperial Highness, the Crown Princess of this kingdom, will lower herself and respond to his demand for a rendezvous? Yet, how he must love me to risk saying what he did say to me. He is no ill-balanced youth; he is a man of ripe judgment. His passion got the better of him. I adore passion. I must go no more to the theatre. Impossible for me to see him nightly. But it's a fine thing to be loved as I am. The most beautiful thing in the wide, wide world! * * * * * DRESDEN, _April 27, 1897. In the Morning._ He is waiting. Doubtless he expects me. What a persuasive thing love is, to be sure! Because he loves me, he argues that the Crown Princess, the wife and mother, will rush to meet him, fall into his arms. Of course, he will be most unhappy if I don't go, for I am sure he is not your ordinary "petticoat-chaser." He will suffer, he is suffering now while I sit here quietly. Am I quiet? If I weren't determined to stay at home, I would half-admit to myself that my soul is obsessed with longing for this man. A diplomat, who has seen much of court life, assumes that a woman in my position is at liberty to keep rendezvous! Let's reason it out. To begin with, Lucretia has to be won over. That's easy enough, but the coachman and lackey! They must be told that Her Imperial Highness is graciously pleased to _walk_ in the _Bois_, the carriage waiting at the end of the Grand Boulevard. * * * * * _After Luncheon._ I ought to have said to him, I won't come. It's cruel to let him wait on a street corner and not even send notice, and to tip him off is impossible. And come to think of it, if Lucretia and I were promenading in the _Bois_ and met the Count by accident, where's the harm? And if I don't go--Good Lord, he might kill himself. He is desperate enough for that. And he might leave letters compromising me.