milar warlike
footing. The maid was jealous of the cook because she had long, secret
confabulations with the countess, who let her do exactly as she
pleased, and even forgave her her pronounced liking for her excellent
Val de Penas, of which she--Isabel--drank at least a barrel a year to
her own account. One day Wilhelm, coming unexpectedly into the boudoir,
surprised Pilar and the red-nosed cook together, the latter engaged in
telling her mistress' fortune by the cards. This was the secret of
Isabel's influence. She hurriedly took herself off with her cards, but
Wilhelm shook his head: "I should not have believed it of my clever
Pilar."

"What would you have?" she returned, half-laughing, half-ashamed; "we
all of us have some little remnant of superstition in some dark corner
of our minds. And after all, it is very odd that ever since our return
she is continually turning up the knave of hearts." And as Wilhelm was
obviously still unenlightened, she explained, "Barbarian, don't you
know that that always means a sweetheart?"

Pilar arranged their life as if they were on their honeymoon. Every
midday and evening meal was a banquet with flowers, choice dishes, and
champagne, till Wilhelm forbade it; every day a drive in an elegant
coupe; every evening to some theater in a half-concealed stage box, in
which Pilar hid herself in the dim background. Wilhelm did not care for
the theater, but Pilar insisted that he should become acquainted with
the French stage. She showed him about Paris as if he were a schoolboy
allowed to come to town in the holidays as a reward for having passed
his examination well. And she was such an interesting, entertaining
guide! She was thoroughly acquainted with the history or the anecdotes
connected with the various streets and buildings, and on their way from
the Column of July to the Opera House, from the Madeleine to the Arc de
Triomphe, from the Odeon to the Pantheon, she unrolled a sparkling
picture of Paris, past and present, now showing him the seething crowds
of the lower classes and their customs and doings in good and bad
hours, now describing well-known contemporaries with all that was
absurd or commendable in them. Stories, scandals, traits of character,
encounters she had had, adventures that had befallen her, all flowed
from her lips in a gay, babbling, inexhaustible stream, and initiated
her hearer into all the intricacies of Parisian life. She was as
familiar with the galleries a