dom to try to be!"

Of course I was puzzled; it was not in that fashion that I had expected
Madame Blumenthal to make use of my information. But the matter now was
quite out of my hands, and all I could do was to bid my companion not
work himself into a fever over either fortune.

The next day I had a visit from Niedermeyer, on whom, after our talk at
the opera, I had left a card. We gossiped a while, and at last he said
suddenly, "By the way, I have a sequel to the history of Clorinda. The
major is at Homburg!"

"Indeed!" said I. "Since when?"

"These three days."

"And what is he doing?"

"He seems," said Niedermeyer, with a laugh, "to be chiefly occupied in
sending flowers to Madame Blumenthal. That is, I went with him the
morning of his arrival to choose a nosegay, and nothing would suit him
but a small haystack of white roses. I hope it was received."

"I can assure you it was," I cried. "I saw the lady fairly nestling her
head in it. But I advise the major not to build upon that. He has a
rival."

"Do you mean the soft young man of the other night?"

"Pickering is soft, if you will, but his softness seems to have served
him. He has offered her everything, and she has not yet refused it." I
had handed my visitor a cigar, and he was puffing it in silence. At last
he abruptly asked if I had been introduced to Madame Blumenthal, and, on
my affirmative, inquired what I thought of her. "I will not tell you," I
said, "or you'll call _me_ soft."

He knocked away his ashes, eyeing me askance. "I have noticed your
friend about," he said, "and even if you had not told me, I should have
known he was in love. After he has left his adored, his face wears for
the rest of the day the expression with which he has risen from her feet,
and more than once I have felt like touching his elbow, as you would that
of a man who has inadvertently come into a drawing-room in his overshoes.
You say he has offered our friend everything; but, my dear fellow, he has
not everything to offer her. He evidently is as amiable as the morning,
but the lady has no taste for daylight."

"I assure you Pickering is a very interesting fellow," I said.

"Ah, there it is! Has he not some story or other? Isn't he an orphan,
or a natural child, or consumptive, or contingent heir to great estates?
She will read his little story to the end, and close the book very
tenderly and smooth down the cover; and then, when he least expects