ashion for
a younger and more attractive one had sacrificed her name and her
reputation for his sake, and had also presented him with three pledges
of mutual affection. Infuriated at his callousness, she afterwards, as
"Daniel Stern," relieved her outraged feelings in a novel ("written to
calm her agitated soul"), _Nelida_, where Liszt, under a transparent
disguise, figured as "Guermann Regnier."

But the pace was too hot to last. Still, it was Liszt, and not Lola,
who cooled first. "With Lola, as with others, known and unknown, it
was," observes William Wallace, "_Da capo al Segno_." The story of the
final rupture between them, as given by Guy de Pourtales, has in it
something of the element of farce:

Liszt allowed her to make love to him, and amused himself
with this dangerous sweetheart. But without any conviction,
without any real curiosity. She annoyed, she irritated him
during his hours of work. Before long he planned to escape,
and, having arranged everything with the hotel porter, he
departed without leaving any address, but not without having
first locked this most wearisome of inamoratas up in her
room. For twelve hours Lola raised a fearful uproar,
breaking whatever she could lay her hands on.

Liszt, however, scenting this possibility, had settled the bill in
advance.

But the incident does not redound to his credit, for the spectacle of
a distinguished artist bribing a lackey to smuggle him out of an hotel
and imprison in her bedroom the woman with whom he had been living, is
a sorry one.

II

Having had enough of Germany for the time being, Lola decided to see
what France had to offer. "The only place for a woman of spirit," she
once said, "is Paris." Accordingly she betook herself there. As soon
as she arrived, she secured lodgings in a modest hotel near the Palais
Royal; and, well aware of her limitations, took some dancing lessons
from a ballet-master in the rue Lepelletier. When she had taken what
she considered enough, she called on Leon Pillet, the director of the
_Academie_.

"You have, of course, already heard of my immense success in London,"
she announced with an assured air.

M. Pillet had not heard of it. But this did not matter. As had been
the case with Lumley before him, Lola's ravishing smile inflamed his
susceptible heart; and he promptly engaged her to dance in the ballet
that was to follow Halevy's _Il Lazzarone_, then in active