ten's falling in love with him. It was
some time before he suspected it, though heaven knows he did not lack
for self-esteem. Perhaps it was this very self-esteem that blinded him
here to the appalling truth. Yet in the end understanding came to
him. When the precise significance of the fond leer of that painted
harridan's repellent coquetry was borne in upon him he felt the skin of
his body creep and roughen But he dissembled craftily. He was a venal
scamp, after all, and in the court of Hanover he saw opportunities to
employ his gifts and his knowledge of the great world in such a way as
to win to eminence. He saw that the Elector's favourite could be of use
to him; and it is not your adventurer's way to look too closely into the
nature of the ladder by which he has the chance to climb.

Skilfully, craftily, then, he played the enamoured countess so long as
her fondness for him might be useful, her hostility detrimental. But
once the Colonelcy of the Electoral Guards was firmly in his grasp,
and an intimate friendship had ripened between himself and Prince
Charles--the Elector's younger son--sufficiently to ensure his future,
he plucked off the mask and allied himself with Sophia in her hostility
towards Madame von Platen. He did worse. Some little time thereafter,
whilst on a visit to the court of Poland, he made one night in his cups
a droll story of the amorous persecution which he had suffered at Madame
von Platen's hands.

It was a tale that set the profligate company in a roar. But there was
one present who afterwards sent a report of it to the Countess, and you
conceive the nature of the emotions it aroused in her. Her rage was the
greater for being stifled. It was obviously impossible for her to appeal
to her lover, the Elector, to avenge her. From the Elector, above all
others, must the matter be kept concealed. But not on that account would
she forgo the vengeance due. She would present a reckoning in full ere
all was done, and bitterly should the presumptuous young adventurer who
had flouted her be made to pay.

The opportunity was very soon to be afforded her. It arose more or less
directly out of an act in which she indulged her spite against Sophia.
This lay in throwing Melusina Schulemberg into the arms of the Electoral
Prince. Melusina, who was years afterwards to be created Duchess
of Kendal, had not yet attained to that completeness of lank, bony
hideousness that was later to distinguish her in Eng