“And yet you hate him?” said Marietta, with a mocking smile.

Barbarina trembled.  Marietta’s question checked her glowing enthusiasm; it rang in her ears like the name-call in the “Somnambulist,” and roused her to consciousness.

“Yes,” said she, in a low tone, “I hate him, and I will ever hate him!  If I loved him, I should be the most wretched of women—­I should despise and curse myself.  He has no heart; he cannot love; and shame and dishonor rest upon the woman who loves and is not beloved.  Frederick loves nothing but his Prussia, his fame, and his greatness.  And the world says, that ‘the Barbarina loves him.’  You see that is impossible, that can never be.  I would rather die than love this man without a heart.”

“The world is incredulous,” said Marietta; “they cannot look into your heart, and you must be silent as to your hatred.  You dare not say that you fainted yesterday from scorn and rage at the sudden appearance of the king.”

“Think you they will believe that joy overcame me?” cried Barbarina, in wild frenzy, “They shall not believe it; it shall not be!” She sprang like an enraged lioness and grasped a little stiletto which lay upon her toilet-table, and which she had brought as a relic from her beautiful fatherland.  “I will not be mocked at and despised,” cried she, proudly, dashing off her gold-embroidered white satin slipper, and raising her foot.

“Oh!  Barbarina, what will you do?” cried Marietta, as she saw her take up the stiletto.

“This,” said she, significantly, sticking the point of the stiletto in the sole of her foot; the blood gushed out and covered her stocking with blood.

Marietta uttered a cry of terror, and rushed to her sister, but Barbarina waved her away; the wound and the flow of blood had brought relief to her wild nature; she was calm, and a ravishing smile disclosed two rows of pearly teeth.

“Be still, Marietta,” said she, in a commanding tone, “the wound is not deep, not dangerous, but deep enough to confirm my statement when I declare that, while dancing last evening, I wounded my foot upon a piece of glass from a broken lamp.”

“Ah! now I understand you, you proud sister,” cried Marietta, looking up gayly.  “You would thus account for your swoon of yesterday?”

“Yes, and now give me my slipper, and allow me to take your arm; we will go into the saloon.”

“With your bleeding foot, with this open wound?”

“Yes, with my bleeding foot; however, we had better check the flow of blood a little.”

The cavaliers who waited for the signora became ever sadder and more thoughtful.  Barbarina must be indeed ill, if she allowed her admirers to wait so long, for she was above all the small coquetries of women; they would not go, however, till they had news of her, till they had seen her sister.

At last their patience was rewarded; the portiere was drawn back, and Barbarina appeared, leaning upon the arm of her sister.  She was pale and evidently suffering.  She walked slowly through the saloon, speaking here and there to the cavaliers, and conversing in the gay, gracious, and piquant manner in which she excelled.  Suddenly, in the midst of one of these merry interchanges of thought, in which one speaks of every thing or nothing, Barbarina uttered a cry of pain and sank upon the sofa.