whom Jansen is secretly
engaged is coming, as well as our honest friend Angelica, so that you
will not lack a guard of honor. Now, do help me persuade the Fraeulein,
my dear countess. I am well enough acquainted with her uncle, to know
that he will have nothing to say against it."

"I help you, you godless tempter of youth?" cried the old lady,
wavering between sincere anger and a desire to laugh. "_Mais decidement
vous tournez a la folie, mon cher Schnetz!_ Have you forgotten that I
fill the place of a spiritual mother, _pour ainsi dire_, to our Irene?
that I feel myself responsible for all the impressions and experiences
she may encounter in our Munich? And you ask me to persuade her
to enter a society to which women _de la plus basse extraction_,
shop-girls, grisettes and models belong--a society, in a word, which is
of a thoroughly _mauvais genre_, no matter how much you bad men may
prefer it to ours?"

While she was pouring forth this hasty speech, a singular play of
anger, pity, and withering scorn came and went upon Schnetz's face. At
length the old lady having come to an end, and making as though she
would draw Irene to her arms, as if she were a little chicken who
sought protection from the claws of a hawk, the lieutenant slowly rose,
planted himself before the sofa, folded his arms over his chest and
said, bringing out each word with a certain dry satisfaction:

"You are too old, my good countess, and moreover too thoroughly
petrified by the atmosphere of courts, for me to venture to hope that
you will change, in any way, your ideas about men and things. But I
must respectfully request you not to make use of the expression
_mauvais genre_ in connection with any society to which I permit myself
the honor of inviting Fraeulein Irene. It is opposed to my principles to
introduce young ladies whom I esteem into any circle where they could
be insulted by anything immoral or vulgar. Upon this point, I hold even
more exclusive views than you, in spite of your duties as spiritual
mother. In the days when I was still a frequenter of 'society,' which
is undoubtedly neither better nor worse here than it is in other
capitals, I often overheard ballroom-talk which would not have been
excused in our Paradise, even by the license allowed to those who wear
masks--though we can scarcely be called prudish. It is true the
conversation was veiled in smooth French and still smoother double
meanings, which undoubtedly accounts fo