"Oh, Heavens!" cried Count Ostermann, "you adorn yourself with flowers, while I am telling you that you are threatened with a conspiracy!""A conspiracy!" laughed the regent, "and Princess Elizabeth to be at the head of it! Believe me, you overwise men, with all your wisdom, never learn rightly to understand women. I, however, am a woman, and Iunderstand Elizabeth. You think that when she kindly chats with the soldiers, and admits the handsome stately grenadiers into her house, it is done for the purpose of conspiring with them. Go to, Count Ostermann, you are very innocent. Princess Elizabeth has but one passion, but it is not the desire of ruling; and when she chats with handsome men, she speaks not of conspiracy, believe me." And, laughing, the regent essayed a new head-dress.
"And how do you explain the secret meetings of Lestocq and the Marquis de la Chetardie?" asked Ostermann, with painfully-suppressed agitation.
"Explain? Why should I seek an explanation for things that do not at all interest me? What is it to me what the surgeon Lestocq has to do with the constantly-ailing French ambassador? Or do you think I should trouble myself about the /lavements/ administered to an ambassador by a surgeon?""Well, then, your highness will allow me to explain their meetings from a less medical point of view? France is your enemy, France meditates your destruction, and the Marquis de la Chetardie is exciting the princess and Lestocq to an insurrection.""And to what end, if I may be allowed to ask?" scornfully inquired Anna.
