“You are thinking, then, seriously of remaining at court?”

“Do you not find that natural, Fredersdorf?  I have lived fifty years at this court, and accustomed myself to its stupidity, its nothingness, and its ceremony, as a man may accustom himself to a hard tent-bed, and find it at last more luxurious than a couch of eider-down.  Besides, I have just lost a million in Nurnberg, and I must find a compensation; the means at least to close my life worthily as a cavalier.  I must, therefore, again bow my free neck, and enter service.  You must aid me, and this day obtain for me an audience of the king.  I hope your influence will reach that far.  The rest must be my own affair.”

“We will see what can be done.  I have joyful news for the king to-day.  Perhaps it will make him gay and complaisant, and he will grant you an audience.”

“And this news which you have for him?”

“The Barbarina has arrived!”

“What! the celebrated dancer?”

“The same.  We have seized and forcibly carried her off from the republic of Venice and from Lord McKenzie; and Baron Swartz has brought her as prisoner to Berlin!”

Pollnitz half raised himself from the sofa, and, seizing the arm of the private secretary, he looked him joyfully in the face.  “I have conceived a plan,” said he, “a heavenly plan!  My friend, the sun of power and splendor is rising for us, and your ambition, which has been weary and ready to die, will now revive, and raise its head proudly on high!  That which I have long sought for is at last found.  The king is too young, too ardent, too much the genius and poet, to be completely unimpassioned.  Even Achilles was not impenetrable in the heel, and Frederick has also his mortal part.  Do you know, Fredersdorf, who will discover the weak point, and send an arrow there?”

“No.”

“Well, I will tell you:  the Signora Barbarina.  Ah, you smile! you shake your unbelieving head.  You are no good psychologist.  Do you not know that we desire most earnestly that which seems difficult, if not impossible to attain, and prize most highly that which we have won with danger and difficulty?  Judge, also, how precious a treasure the Barbarina must be to Frederick.  For her sake he has for months carried on a diplomatic contest with Venice, and at last he has literally torn her away from my Lord Stuart McKenzie.”

“That is true,” said Fredersdorf, thoughtfully; “for ten days the king has waited with a rare impatience for the arrival of this beautiful dancer, and he commanded that, as soon as she reached Berlin, it should be announced to him.”

“I tell you the king will adore the Signora Barbarina,” said Pollnitz, as he once more stretched himself upon the sofa pillows.  “I shall visit her to-day, and make the necessary arrangements.  Now I am content.  I see land, a small island of glorious promise, which will receive me, the poor shipwrecked mariner, and give me shelter and protection.  I will make myself the indispensable counsellor of Barbarina; I will teach her how she can melt the stony heart of Frederick, and make him her willing slave.”