far; it is perilous to stand on the top of
the hill; better to remain near the summit, indeed, but on some sheltered
ledge whence we cannot be toppled over. Had I had my way, you should have
married some high court dignitary, and as his wife you could have ruled
undisturbed.'

'Can the wife of a court dignitary not be forbidden the court?' said
Wilhelmine idly.

'Naturally, my dear! The Emperor cannot order an official of a German
state to remove his wife from the court where he is employed.'

'Only the prince's wedded wife can be exiled, then?' said Wilhelmine
sneeringly.

'My dear! we climbed too high, alas!' Madame de Ruth replied.

Her words had started Wilhelmine on a new track of thought. Married to a
courtier holding high office at court, she could return and resume her
career. But that would declare her marriage with Eberhard Ludwig to be a
farce, she reflected. Still, if this were the only way? In her mental
vision she reviewed each courtier, but she could find none fitting for
the position of husband in name. Schuetz perhaps? She laughed at the very
idea. No; the bridegroom must be a man of much breeding and no morals.

She wrote to Schuetz requesting him to journey to Schaffhausen on
important business. The attorney arrived, and Wilhelmine observed how
shabby was his coat, how rusty his general appearance. He was again the
pettifogging lawyer in poor circumstances, and Wilhelmine reflected that
he would be all the more anxious to serve her in order to return to his
ill-gotten splendour at her illegitimate court.

Schuetz responded eagerly to her proposal. He acclaimed her a marvel of
intelligence, and assured her that in Vienna he would be able to find the
very article--a ruined nobleman ready to sell his name to any bidder.

On the day following Schuetz's advent at Schaffhausen, Wilhelmine was
surprised by a visit from her brother Friedrich, who arrived in a deeply
injured mood. Since Wilhelmine left Urach, he averred, he had been
treated in a manner all unfitting for an Oberhofmarshall, and the head of
the noble family of Graevenitz. Serenissimus had paid him scant attention,
and Stafforth had been reinstated as Hofmarshall to the Duchess Johanna
Elizabetha--a brand new dignity, complained this Oberhofmarshall of a
sham court. He made himself mighty disagreeable to his sister, varying
his behaviour by outbursts of despair and noisy self-pity, which would
have been laughable had they not been so lou