Pollnitz had followed her glances, and understood her blushes and her confusion.  He stepped to the picture and pointed to the tender lovers.

“Gracious princess, demand of these blessed ones, if a man who loves passionately has nothing more to implore of his mistress than the permission to write her letters?”

Amelia trembled.  She fixed her eyes with an expression of absolute terror upon Pollnitz, who with his fox smile and immovable composure gazed steadily in her face.  He had no pity for her girlish confusion, for her modest and maidenly alarm.  With gay, mocking, and frivolous jests, he resolved to overcome her fears.  He painted in glowing colors the anguish and despair of her young lover; he assured her that she could grant him a meeting in her rooms without danger from curious eyes or ears.  Did not the room of the princess open upon this little dark corridor, in which no guard was ever placed, and from which a small, neglected stairway led to the lower stage of the castle?  This stairway opened into an unoccupied room, the low windows of which looked out upon the garden of Monbijou.  Nothing, then, was necessary but to withdraw the bar from these windows during the day; they could then be noiselessly opened by night, and the room of the princess safely reached.

The princess was silent.  By no look or smile, no contraction of the brow or expression of displeasure, did she show her emotion, but she listened to these vile and dangerous words; she let the poison of the tempter enter her heart; she had neither the strength nor will to reject his counsel, or banish him from her presence; she had only the power to be silent, and to conceal from Pollnitz that her better self was overcome.

“I shall soon reach the goal,” said Pollnitz, clapping his hands merrily after leaving the princess.  “Yes, yes! the heart of the little Princess Amelia is subdued, and her love is like a ripe fruit-ready to be plucked by the first eager hand.  And this, my proud and cruel King Frederick, will be my revenge.  I will return shame for shame.  If the good people in the streets rejoice to hear the humiliation and shame put upon the Baron von Pollnitz, cried aloud at the corners, I think they will enjoy no less the scandal about the little Princess Amelia.  This will not, to be sure, be trumpeted through the streets; but the voice of Slander is powerful, and her lightest whispers are eagerly received.”

Pollnitz gave himself up for a while to these wicked and cruel thoughts, and he looked like a demon rejoicing in the anguish of his victims.  He soon smoothed his brow, however, and assumed his accustomed gay and unembarrassed manner.

“But before I revenge myself, I must be paid,” said he, with an internal chuckle.  “I shall be the chosen confidant in this adventure, and my name is not Pollnitz if I do not realize a large profit.  Oh, King Frederick, King Frederick!  I think the little Amelia will pay but small attention to your command and your menace.  She will lend the poor Pollnitz gold; yes, gold, much gold! and I—­I will pay her by my silence.”