"What do you think. The Countess von Wildenau is founding an Orphan's Home!" said the prince, as, leaving the Gross house, he joined a group of gentlemen who were waiting just outside the door in the little garden.
The news created a sensation; the gentlemen, laughing and jesting, plied him with questions.
"Oh, Mon Dieu, who can understand a woman? Our goddess is sitting in the peasants' living room, with the elderly daughters of the house, indescribable creatures, occupying herself with feminine work."
"Her Highness! Countess Wildenau! Oh, that's a bad joke."
"No, upon my honor! If she had not hung a veil over the window, we could see her sitting there. She has borrowed a calico apron from one of the 'ladies of the house,' and as, for want of a maid, she was obliged to arrange her hair herself, she wears it to-day in a remarkably simple style and looks,"--he kissed his hand to the empty air--"more bewitching than ever, like a girl of sixteen, a regular Gretchen! Whoever has not gone crazy over her when she has been in full dress, will surely do so if he sees her thus."
"Aha! We must see her, too; we'll assail the window!" cried his companions enthusiastically.
"No, no! For Heaven's sake don't do that, on pain of her anger! Prince Hohenheim, I beg you! Count Cossigny, don't knock! St. Genois, au nom de Dieu, she will never forgive you."
"Why not--friends so intimate as we are?"
"I have already said, who can depend upon a woman's whims? Let me explain. I entered, rejoicing in the thought of bringing her such pleasant news. I said: 'Guess whom I met just now at the ticket office, Countess?' The goddess sat sewing."
There was a general cry of astonishment. "Sewing!" the prince went on, "of course, without a thimble, for those in the house did not fit, and there was none among Her Highness' trinkets. So I repeated my question. An icy 'How can I tell?' was the depressing answer, as if at that moment nothing in the world could possibly interest her more than her work! So, unasked and with no display of attention, I was forced to go on with my news. 'Just think, Countess, Prince Hohenheim, the Counts Cossigny, Wengenrode, St. Genois, all Austria, France, and Bavaria have arrived!' I joyously exclaimed. I expected that she would utter a sigh of relief at the thought of meeting men of her world again, but no--she greeted my tidings with a frown."
"Hear, hear!" cried the group.
"A frown! I was forced to persist. 'They are outside, waiting to throw themselves at your feet,' I added. A still darker frown. 'Please keep the gentlemen away, I can see no one, I will see no one.' So she positively announced. I timidly ventured to ask why. She was tired, she could receive no one, she had no time. At last it came out. What do you suppose the countess did yesterday?"
"I dare not guess," replied St. Genois with a malicious glance at the prince, which the latter loftily ignored.
"She sent me away at eleven o'clock and then went wandering about, rhapsodizing over the moonlight with her host, old Gross."
A universal peal of laughter greeted these words. "Countess Wildenau, for lack of an escort, obliged to wander about with an old stone-cutter!"
"Yes, and she availed herself of this virtuous ramble to save the life of a despairing girl, who very opportunely attempted to commit suicide, just at the time the countess was passing to rescue this precious prize. Now she is sitting yonder remodeling one of her charming tailor costumes for this last toy of her caprice. She declares that she loves the wench most tenderly, will never be separated from her; in short, she is playing the novel character of Lady Bountiful, and does not want to be disturbed."
"Did you see the fair orphan?"
"No; she protested that it would be unpleasant for the girl to expose herself to curious glances, so she conceals this very sensitive young lady from profane eyes in her sleeping room. What do you say to all this, Prince?"
"I say," replied Prince Hohenheim, an elderly gentleman with a clearly cut, sarcastic face, a bald forehead, and a low, but distinct enunciation, "that a vivacious, imaginative woman is always influenced by the environment in which she happens to find herself. When the countess is in the society of scholarly people, she becomes extremely learned, if she is in a somewhat frivolous circle, like ours, she grows--not exactly frivolous, but full of sparkling wit, and here, among these devout enthusiasts, Her Highness wishes to play the part of a Stylite. Let us indulge her, it won't last long, a lady's whim must never be thwarted. Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut!"
"Has the countess also made a vow to fast?" asked Count Cossigny of the Austrian Embassy, and therefore briefly called 'Austria,' "could we not dine together?"
"No, she told me that she would not leave the beloved suicide alone a moment at present, and therefore she intended to dine at home. Yesterday she shuddered at the bare thought of drinking a cup of tea made in that witch's kitchen, and only the fact that my valet prepared it and I drank it first in her presence finally induced her, at ten o'clock last evening, to accept the refreshment. And to-day she will eat a dinner prepared by the ladies of the house. There must really be something dangerous in the air of Ammergau!"
"To persons of the countess' temperament, yes!" replied Prince Hohenheim in his calm manner, then slipping his arm through the prince's a moment, whispered confidentially, as they walked on: "I advise you, Prince Emil, to get her away as soon as possible."
"Certainly, all the arrangements are made. We shall start directly after the performance."
"That is fortunate. To-morrow, then! You have tickets?"
"Oh yes, and what is still better, whole bones."
"That's true," cried Austria, "what a crowd! One might think Sarah Bernhardt was going to play the Virgin Mary."
"It's ridiculous! I haven't seen such a spectacle since the Paris Exposition!" remarked St. Genois.
"It's worse than Baden-Baden at the time of the races," muttered Wengenrode, angrily. "Absurd, what brings the people here?"
"Why, we are here, too," said Hohenheim, smiling.
"Mon Dieu, it must be seen once, if people are in the neighborhood," observed Cossigny.
"Are you going directly after the performance, too?" asked Prince Emil.
"Of course, what is there to do here? No gaming--no ladies' society, and just think, the burgomaster of Ammergau will allow neither a circus nor any other ordinary performance. He was offered forty thousand marks by the proprietor of the Circus Rouannet, if he would permit him to give performances during the Passion Play! Mademoiselle Rouannet told me so herself. Do you suppose that obstinate, stiff-necked Philistine could be persuaded? No, it was not in harmony with the dignity of the Passion Play. He preferred to refuse the 40,000 marks. The Salon Klueber wanted to put up an elegant merry-go-round and offered 12,000 marks for the privilege. Heaven forbid!"
"I believe these people have the mania of ambition," said Wengenrode.
"Say rather of saintship,' corrected Prince Hohenheim.
"Aye, they all consider themselves the holy personages whom they represent. We need only look at this arrogant burgomaster, and the gentleman who personates Christ, to understand what these people imagine themselves."
All joined in the laugh which followed.
"Yes," said Wengenrode, "and the Roman procurator, Pilate, who is a porter or a messenger and so drags various loads about, carried up my luggage to-day and dropped my dressing case containing a number of breakable jars and boxes. 'Stupid blockhead!' I exclaimed, angrily. He straightened himself and looked at me with an expression which actually embarrassed me. 'My name is Thomas Rendner, sir! I beg your pardon for my awkwardness, and am ready to make your loss good, so far as my means shall allow.'"
"Now tell me, isn't that sheer hallucination of grandeur?"
Some of the gentlemen laughed, but Prince Emil and Hohenheim were silent.
"Where shall we go to-morrow evening in Munich to recompense ourselves for this boredom?" asked Cossigny.
"To the Casino, I think!" said the prince.
"Well, then we'll all meet there, shall we?"
The party assented.
"Provided that the countess has no commands for us," observed St. Genois.
"She will not have any," said the prince, "for either the Play will produce an absurd impression which is not to be expected, and then she will feel ashamed and unwilling to grant us our triumph because we predicted it, or her sentimental mood will draw from this farce a sweet poison of emotion, and in that case we shall be too frivolous for her! This must first be allowed to exhale."
"Very true," Hohenheim assented. "You are just the man to cope with this capricious beauty, Prince Emil. Adieu! May you prosper!"
The gentlemen raised their hats.
"Farewell!" said Cossigny, "by the way, I'll make a suggestion. We shall best impress the countess while in this mood, by our generosity; let us heap coals of fire on her head by sending a telegram to the court-gardener to convert the whole palace into a floral temple to welcome her return. It will touch a mysterious chord of sympathy if she meets only these mute messengers of our adoration. When on entering she finds this surprise and remembers how basely she treated us this morning, her heart will be touched and she will invite us to dine the day after to-morrow."
"A capital plan," cried Wengenrode and St. Genois, gaily. "Do your Highnesses agree?"
"Certainly," replied Hohenheim, with formal courtesy, "when the point in question is a matter of gallantry, a Hohenheim is never backward."
"I beg to be allowed to contribute also, but incognito. She would regard such an attention from me as a piece of sentimentality, and it would produce just the contrary effect," Prince Emil answered.
"As you please."
"Let us go to the telegraph office!" cried Wengenrode, eagerly.
"Farewell, gentlemen."
"Au revoir, Prince Emil! Are you going to return to the lionesses' den?"
"Can you ask?" questioned Hohenheim with a significant smile.
"Then early to-morrow morning at the Play, and at night the Casino, don't forget!" Cossigny called back.
The gentlemen, laughing and chatting, strolled down the street to their lodgings. The prince watched them a moment, turned, and went back to the countess.
"I cannot really be vexed with her, if these associates do not satisfy her," he thought.
"Should I desire her to become my wife, if they did? Certainly not. Yet if women only would not rush from one extreme to another? Hohenheim is perfectly right, she ought not to stay here too long, she must go to-morrow."
He had reached the house and entered the neglected old garden where huge gnarled fruit trees, bearing small, stunted fruit, interlaced their branches above a crooked bench. There, in the midst of the rank grass and weeds, sat the countess, her beautiful head resting against the mouldy bark of the old trunk, gazing thoughtfully at the luminous mountains gleaming in the distance through the tangled boughs and shrubbery.
From the adjoining garden of the sculptor Zwink, whose site was somewhat higher, a Diana carved in white stone gazed curiously across, seeming as if she wished to say to the pensive lady who at that moment herself resembled a statue: "Art will create gods for you everywhere!" But the temptation had no effect, the countess seemed to have had no luck with these gods, she no longer believed in them!
"Well, Countess Madeleine, did the light and air lure you out of doors?" asked the prince, joyfully approaching her.
"Oh, I could not bear to stay there any longer. Herr Gross' daughters are finishing the dress. We will dine here, Prince; the meal can be served on a table near the house, under a wild-grape vine arbor. We can wait on ourselves for one day."
"For one day!" repeated the prince with great relief; "oh yes, it can be managed for one day." Thank Heaven, she had no intention of staying here.
"Oh, Prince, see how beautiful, how glorious it is!"
"Beautiful, glorious? Pardon me, but I see nothing to call forth words you so rarely use! You must have narrowed your demands if, after the view of the wondrous garden of the Isola Bella and all the Italian villas, you suddenly take delight in cabbage-stalks, wild-pears, broom, and colt's foot."
"Now see how you talk again!" replied the countess, unpleasantly affected by his words. "Does not Spinoza say: 'Everything is beautiful, and as I lose myself in the observation of its beauty, my pleasure in life is increased.'"
"That has not been your motto hitherto. You have usually found something to criticise in every object. It seems to me that you have wearied of the beautiful and now, by way of a change, find even ugliness fair."
"Very true, my friend. I am satisfied, nothing charms me, nothing satisfies me, not even the loveliest scene, because I always apply to everything the standard of perfection, and nothing attains it." She shook herself suddenly as if throwing off a burden. "This must not continue, the aesthetic intolerance which poisoned every pleasure must end, I will cast aside the whole load of critical analysis and academic ideas of beauty, and snap my fingers at the ghosts of Winckelmann and Lessing. Here in the kitchen-garden, among cabbage-stalks and colt's foot, wild-pear and plum-trees, fanned by the fresh, crystal-clear air of the lofty mountains, whose glaciers shimmer with a bluish light through the branches, in the silence and solitude, I suddenly find it beautiful; beautiful because I am happy, because I am only a human being, free from every restraint, thinking nothing, feeling nothing save the peace of nature, the delight of this repose."
She rested her feet comfortably on the bench and, with her head thrown back, gazed with a joyous expression into the blue air which, after the rain, arched above the earth like a crystal bell.
This mood did not quite please the prince. He was exclusively a man of the world. His thoughts were ruled by the laws of the most rigid logic, whatever was not logically attainable had no existence for him; his enthusiasm reached the highest pitch only in the enjoyment of the noblest products of art and science. He did not comprehend how any one could weary of them, even for a moment, on the one side because his calm temperament did not, like the countess' passionate one, exhaust everything by following it to its inmost core, and he was thus guarded from satiety; on the other because he wholly lacked appreciation of nature and her unconscious grandeur. He was the trained vassal of custom in the conventional, as well as in every other province. The countess, however, possessed some touch of that doctrine of divine right which is ready, at any moment, to cast off the bonds of tradition and artificial models and obey the impulse of kinship with sovereign nature. This was the boundary across which he could not follow her, and he was perfectly aware of it, for he had one of those proud characters which disdain to deceive themselves concerning their own powers. Yet it filled him with grave anxiety.
"What are you thinking of now, Prince?" asked his companion, noticing his gloomy mood.
"That I have not seen you so contented for months, and yet I am unable to understand the cause of this satisfaction. Especially when I remember what it usually requires to bring a smile of pleasure to your lips."
"Dear me, must everything be understood?" cried the beautiful woman, laughing; "there is the pedant again! Must we be perpetually under the curb of self-control and give ourselves an account whether what we feel in a moment of happiness is sensible and authorized? Must we continually see ourselves reflected in the mirror of our self-consciousness, and never draw a veil over our souls and permit God to have one undiscovered secret in them?"
The prince silently kissed her hand. His eyes now expressed deep, earnest feeling, and stirred by emotion, she laid her other hand upon his head:
"You are a noble-hearted man, Prince; though some unspoken, uncomprehended idea stands between us, I know your feelings."
Again the rose and the thorn! It was always so! At the very moment her soft, sweet hand touched him caressingly, she thrust a dagger into his heart. Aye, that was the continual "misunderstanding" which existed between them, the thorn in the every rose she proffered.
Women like these are only tolerable when they really love; when a powerful feeling makes them surrender themselves completely. Where this is not the case, they are, unconsciously and involuntarily, malicious, dangerous creatures, caressing and slaying at the same moment.
First, woe betide the man whom they believe they love. For how often such beings are mistaken in their feelings!
Such delusions do not destroy the woman, she often experiences them, but the man who has shared them with her! Alas for him who has not kept a cool head.
The prince was standing with his back turned to the street, gazing thoughtfully at the beautiful woman with the fathomless, sparkling eyes. Suddenly he saw her start and flush. Turning with the speed of lightning, he followed the direction of her glance, but saw nothing except the figure of a man of unusual height, with long black hair, pass swiftly around the corner and disappear.
"Do you know that gentleman?"
"No," replied the countess frankly, "he is the person whom I saw yesterday as we drove up the mountain."
"Pardon the indiscretion, but you blushed."
"Yes, I felt it, but I don't know why," she answered with an almost artless innocence in her gaze. The prince could not help smiling.
"Countess, Countess!" he said, shaking his finger at her as if she were a child. "Guard your imagination; it will prove a traitor some day."
The countess, as if with a sweet consciousness of guilt, drew down the uplifted hand with a movement of such indescribable grace that no one could have remained angry with her. The prince knelt at her feet an instant, not longer than a blade of grass requires to bend before the breeze and rise again, then he stood erect, somewhat paler than before, but perfectly calm.
"I'll go in and tell my valet to serve our dinner here."
"If you please, Prince," replied the lady, gazing absently down the street.
Andreas Gross entered the garden. "Everything is settled, Your Highness. I have talked with Josepha's relatives and guardian and they will be very glad to have you take her."
"All, even the Christ-Freyer?"
"Certainly, there is no objection."
She had expected something more and looked at the old man as if for the rest of the message, but he added nothing.
"Ought not Freyer to come here, in order to discuss the particulars with me?" she asked at last, almost timidly.
"Why, he goes to see no one, as I told you, and he surely would not come to speak of Josepha, for he is ashamed of her. He says that whatever you do will be satisfactory to him."
"Very well," replied the countess, in a somewhat disappointed tone.
"What a comical tete-a-tete!" a laughing voice suddenly exclaimed behind the fence. The countess started up, but it was too late for escape; she was caught.
A lady, young and elegantly dressed, accompanied by two older ones, eagerly rushed up to her.
"Dear Countess, why have you hidden yourself here at the farthest corner of the village? We have searched all Ammergau for you. Your coat-of-arms on the carriage and your liveries at the old post-house betrayed you. Yes, yes, when people want to travel incognito, they must not journey with genuine Wildenau elegance. We were more cautious. We came in a modest hired conveyance. But what a life this is! I was obliged to sleep on straw last night. Hear and shudder! On straw! Did you have a bed? You have been here since yesterday?"
"Why, Your Highness, pray take breath! Good morning, Baroness! Good morning, Your Excellency!"
The Countess von Wildenau greeted all the ladies somewhat absently, yet very cordially. "Will you condescend to sit on this bench?"
"Oh, you must sit here, too."
"No, It is not large enough, I am already seated."
She had taken her seat on the root of a tree, with her face turned toward the street, in which she seemed to be deeply interested. The ladies were accommodated on the bench, and then followed a conversation which no pen could describe. This, that, and the other thing, matters to which the countess had not given a single thought, an account of everything the new comers had heard about the Ammergau people, the appearance of the Christ, whom they had already met, a handsome man, very handsome, with magnificent hair, and mysterious eyes--not the head of Christ, but rather as one would imagine Faust or Odin; but there was no approaching him, he was so unsociable. Such a pity, it would have been so interesting to talk with him. Rumor asserted that he was in love with a noble lady; it was very possible, there was no other way of explaining his distant manner.
Countess von Wildenau had become very quiet, the eyes bent upon the street had an expression of actual suffering in their depths.
Prince Emil stood in the doorway, mischievously enjoying the situation. It was a just punishment for her capricious whims that now, after having so insolently refused to see her friends, she should be compelled to listen to this senseless chatter.
At last, however, he took pity on her and sent out his valet with the table-cloth and plates.
"Oh, it is your dinner hour!" The ladies started up and Her Highness raised her lorgnette.
"Ah, Prince Emil's valet! So the faithful Toggenburg is with you."
"Certainly, ladies!" said a voice from the door, as the prince came forward. "Only I was too timid to venture into such a dangerous circle."
Peals of laughter greeted him.
"Yes, yes; the Prince of Metten-Barnheim timid!"
"At present I am merely the representative of Countess Wildenau's discharged courier, whose office, with my usual devotion, I am trying to fill, and doing everything in my power to escape the fate of my predecessor."
"That of being sent away?" asked the baroness somewhat maliciously.
Countess Madeleine cast a glance of friendly reproach at him. "How can you say such things, Prince?"
"Your soup is growing cold!" cried the duchess.
"Where does Your Highness dine?"
"At the house of one of the chorus singers, where we are lodging. A man with the bearing of an apostle, and a blacksmith by trade. It is strange, all these people have a touch of ideality about them, and all this beautiful long hair! Haven't you walked through the village yet? Oh, you must, it's very odd; the people who throng around the actors in the Passion Play are types we shall not soon see again. I'm waiting eagerly for to-morrow. I hope our seats will be near. Farewell, dear Countess!" The duchess took the arm of the prince, who escorted her to the garden gate. "I hope you will take care that the countess, under the influence of the Passion, doesn't enter a convent the day after to-morrow."
"Your Highness forgets that I am an incorrigible heretic," laughed Madeleine Wildenau, kissing the two ladies in waiting, in her absence of mind, with a tenderness which they were at a loss to understand.
The prince accompanied the ladies a short distance away from the house, while Madeleine returned to Josepha, as if seeking in the society of the sorrowful, quiet creature, rest from the noisy conversation.
"Really, Countess von Wildenau has an over-supply of blessings. This magnificent widow's dower, the almost boundless revenue from the Wildenau estates, and a host of suitors!" said the baroness, after the prince had taken leave to return to "his idol."
"Yes, but she will lose the revenue if she marries again," replied the duchess. "The will was made in that way by Count Wildenau because his jealousy extended beyond the grave. I know all the particulars. She must either remain a widow or make a very brilliant match; for a woman of her temperament could never accommodate herself to more modest circumstances."
"So she is not a good match?" asked Her Excellency.
"Certainly not, for the will is so worded that on the day she exchanges the name of Wildenau for another, the estates, with the whole income, go to a side branch of the Wildenau family as there are no direct heirs. It is enough to make one hate him, for the Wildenau cousins are extravagant and avaricious men who have already squandered one fortune. The poor countess will then have nothing except her personal property, her few diamonds, and whatever gifts she received from her husband."
"Has she no private fortune?" asked the baroness, curiously.
"You know that she was a Princess Prankenburg, and the financial affairs of the Prankenburg family are very much embarrassed. That is why the beautiful young girl was sacrificed at seventeen to that horrible old Wildenau, who in return was forced to pay her father's debts," the duchess explained.
"Oh, so that's the way the matter stands!" said Her Excellency, drawing a long breath. "Do her various admirers know it? All the gentlemen undoubtedly believe her to be immensely rich."
"Oh, she makes no secret of these facts," replied the duchess kindly. "She is sincere, that must be acknowledged, and she endured a great deal with her nervous old husband. We all know what he was; every one feared him and he tyrannized over his wife. What was all her wealth and splendor to her? One ought not to grudge her a taste of happiness."
"She laid aside her widow's weeds as soon as possible. People thought that very suspicious," observed the baroness in no friendly tone.
"That is exactly why I say: she is better than her reputation, because she scorns falsehood and hypocrisy," replied the duchess, leading the way across a narrow bridge. The two ladies in waiting, lingering a little behind, whispered: "She scorn falsehood and deception! Why, Your Excellency, her whole nature is treachery. She cannot exist a moment without acting some farce! With the pious she is pious, with the Liberals she plays the Liberal, she coquets with every party to maintain her influence as ex-ambassadress. She cannot cease intriguing and plotting. Now she is once more assuming the part of youthful artlessness to bewitch this Prince Emil. Did you see that look of embarrassment just now, like a young girl? It is enough to make one ill!"
"Yes, just see how she has duped that handsome, clever prince, the heir of a reigning family, too," lamented Her Excellency, who had daughters. "It is a shocking affair, he is seen everywhere with her; and yet there is no report of a betrothal! What do the men find in her? She captivates them all, young and old, there is no difference."
"And she is no longer even beautiful. She has faded, lost all her freshness, it is nothing but coquetry!" answered the baroness hastily, for the duchess had stopped and was waiting for the ladies to overtake her. So they walked on in the direction of the Passion Theatre where, on the morrow, they were to behold the God of Love, for whose sake they made this pious pilgrimage.
"You were rightly served, Countess Madeleine," said the prince laughing, as they took their seats at the table. "You sent away your true friends and fell into the hands of these false ones."
"The duchess is not false," answered the countess with a weary look, "she is noble in thought and act."
"Like all who are in a position where they need envy no one," said the prince, pushing aside with his spoon certain little islands of doubtful composition which were floating in the soup. "But believe me, with these few exceptions, no one save men, deals sincerely with an admired woman. Women of the ordinary stamp cannot repress their envy. I should not like to hear what is being said of us by these friends on their way home."
"What does it matter?" answered his companion, leaving her soup untasted.
"Our poor diplomatic corps, which had anticipated so much pleasure in seeing you," the prince began again. "I would almost like to ask you a favor, Countess!"
"What is it?"
"That you will invite us to dine day after to-morrow. The gentlemen have resolved to avenge themselves nobly by offering you an ovation on your return to Munich to-morrow evening."
"Indeed, what is it?"
"I ought not to betray the secret, but I know that you do not like surprises. The Wildenau palace will be transformed into a temple of flowers. Everything is already ordered, it is to be matchless, fairy like!"
The speaker was secretly watching the impression made by his words; he must get her away from this place at any cost! The mysterious figure which had just called to her cheeks a flush for whose sake he would have sacrificed years of his life, then he had noticed--nothing escaped his keen eye and ear--her annoyed, almost jealous expression when the ladies spoke of the "raven-locked" Christ and his love for some high-born dame. She must leave this place ere the whim gained a firm hold. The worthy peasant-performer might not object to the admiration of noble ladies, a pinchback theatre-saint would hardly resist a Countess Wildenau, if she should choose to make him the object of an eccentric caprice.
"It is very touching in the gentlemen," said the countess; "let us anticipate them and invite them to dine the day after to-morrow."
"Ah, there spoke my charming friend, now I am content with you. Will you permit me, at the close of this luxurious meal, to carry the joyous tidings to the gentlemen?"
"Do so," she answered carelessly. "And when you have delivered the invitation, would you do me the favor to telegraph to my steward?"
"Certainly." He pushed back the plate containing an unpalatable cutlet and drew out his note-book to make a memorandum.
"What shall I write?"
"Steward Geres, Wildenau Palace, Munich.--Day after to-morrow, Monday, Dinner at 6 o'clock, 12 plates, 15 courses," dictated the countess.
"There, that is settled. But, Countess, twelve persons! Whom do you intend to invite?"
"When I return the duchess' visit I will ask the three ladies, then Prince Hohenheim and Her Excellency's two daughters will make twelve."
"But that will be terribly wearisome to the neighbors of Her Excellency's daughters."
"Yes, still it can't be helped, I must give the poor girls a chance to make their fortune! With the exception of Prince Hohenheim, you are all in the market!" she said smiling.
"No one could speak so proudly save a Countess Wildenau, who knows that every other woman only serves as a foil," replied the prince, kissing her hand with a significant smile. She was remarkably gracious that day; she permitted her hand to rest in his, there was a shade of apology in her manner. Apology for what? He had no occasion to ponder long--she was ashamed of having neglected a trusted friend for a chimera, a nightmare, which had assumed the form of a man with mysterious black eyes and floating locks. The ladies' stories of the love affairs of the presumptive owner of these locks had destroyed the dream and broken the spell of the nightmare.
"Admirable, it had happened very opportunely."
"But, Countess, the gentlemen will be disappointed, if the ladies, also, come. Would it not be much pleasanter without them? You are far more charming and entertaining when you are the only lady present at our little smoking parties."
"We can have one later. The ladies will leave at ten. Then you others can remain."
"And who will be sent away next, when you are wearied by this apres soiree? Who will be allowed to linger on a few minutes and smoke the last cigarette with you?" he added, coaxingly. He looked very handsome at that moment.
"We shall see," replied the countess, and for the first time her voice thrilled with a warmer emotion. Her hand still rested in his, she had forgotten to withdraw it. Suddenly its warmth roused her, and his blue eyes flashed upon her a light as brilliant as the indiscreet glare which sometimes rouses a sleeper.
She released it, and as the dinner was over, rose from the little table.
"Will you go with me to call on the duchess later?" she asked. "If so, I will dress now, while you give the invitation to the gentlemen, and you can return afterward."
"As you choose!" replied the prince in an altered tone, for the slight variation in the lady's mood had not escaped his notice. "In half an hour, then. Farewell!"
