and learned
enough when she could read him the newspapers. At last, one day, Madame
Blumenthal flung down her pen and announced in triumph that she had
finished her novel. Clorinda had expired in the arms of--some one else
than her husband. The major, by way of congratulating her, declared that
her novel was immoral rubbish, and that her love of vicious paradoxes was
only a peculiarly depraved form of coquetry. He added, however, that he
loved her in spite of her follies, and that if she would formally abjure
them he would as formally offer her his hand. They say that women like
to be snubbed by military men. I don't know, I'm sure; I don't know how
much pleasure, on this occasion, was mingled with Anastasia's wrath. But
her wrath was very quiet, and the major assured me it made her look
uncommonly pretty. 'I have told you before,' she says, 'that I write
from an inner need. I write to unburden my heart, to satisfy my
conscience. You call my poor efforts coquetry, vanity, the desire to
produce a sensation. I can prove to you that it is the quiet labour
itself I care for, and not the world's more or less flattering attention
to it!' And seizing the history of Clorinda she thrust it into the fire.
The major stands staring, and the first thing he knows she is sweeping
him a great curtsey and bidding him farewell for ever. Left alone and
recovering his wits, he fishes out Clorinda from the embers, and then
proceeds to thump vigorously at the lady's door. But it never opened,
and from that day to the day three months ago when he told me the tale,
he had not beheld her again."

"By Jove, it's a striking story," I said. "But the question is, what
does it prove?"

"Several things. First (what I was careful not to tell my friend), that
Madame Blumenthal cared for him a trifle more than he supposed; second,
that he cares for her more than ever; third, that the performance was a
master-stroke, and that her allowing him to force an interview upon her
again is only a question of time."

"And last?" I asked.

"This is another anecdote. The other day, Unter den Linden, I saw on a
bookseller's counter a little pink-covered romance--'Sophronia,' by
Madame Blumenthal. Glancing through it, I observed an extraordinary
abuse of asterisks; every two or three pages the narrative was adorned
with a portentous blank, crossed with a row of stars."

"Well, but poor Clorinda?" I objected, as Niedermeyer paused.

"Sophroni