sir, that what you offer is impossible. My sister, the
soprano, would never hear of such a thing. My brother, her husband,
would not allow it. And I owe them my living, my education. How could I
repay them if I left them now?" she hesitated.

"Simply enough. You would be a singer at the opera some day, and take
them all to live with you. Is there no other reason?" He recollected
with a vivid sense of the disagreeable the lively antics of a lithe
youth in the company, who, at the close of the concert, executed with
diabolic dexterity what they called a _Schuhplattltanz_. This dance had
glued Krayne's attention, for Roeselein was the young tenor singer's
partner. With their wooden sabots they clattered and sang, waving wildly
their arms or else making frantic passages of pretended love and
coquetry. It upset the Englishman to see the impudence of this common
peasant fellow grasping Roeselein by the waist, as he whirled her about
in the boorish dance. Hence the clause to his question. She endured his
inquiring gaze, as she simply answered:--

"No, there is no other reason." She put her hand on the arm of her
companion and the lights suddenly became misty, for he was of an
apoplectic tendency. They talked of music, of the opera in Vienna and
Prague. She was born in Bavaria, not more than a day's ride from
Marienbad. You could almost see her country from the top of the
Podhornberg, in the direction of the Franconian Mountains, not far from
Bayreuth. The place was called Schnabelwaid, and it was very high, very
windy. Since her tenth year she had been singing--yes, even in the
chorus at the Vienna opera, with her sister and brother. They were no
common yodlers. They could sing all the music of the day. The yodling
was part of their business, as was the costume. Later, when she had
enough saved, she would study in Vienna for grand opera!

He was enraptured. How romantic it all was! A free-born maiden--he was
certain she was reared in some old castle--wandering about earning money
for her musical education. What a picture for a painter! What a story
for a novelist! They were interrupted. The dancer, a young man with a
heavy shock of hair growing low on his forehead, under which twinkled
beady black eyes, had been sent to tell Fraeulein Roeselein that her
colleagues were waiting for her. With a courtesy she went away. Krayne
now thoroughly hated the dancer.

It was long after eleven when the concert was over and the party sta