s with the famous buildings, and in front
of the works of art in the one and the facades of the other she fired
off a rocket-like shower of original remarks, paradoxes, and brilliant
criticism. She knew exactly where to scoff and where to be
enthusiastic, jeered with all the ruthless slang of the Paris gamins at
the pompously mediocre sights recommended to the tourists' admiration
by Baedeker, and gave evidence of deep and true comprehension of all
that was really beautiful.

At the very beginning she dragged Wilhelm to a photographer's studio
and disclosed to him, when it was too late to beat a retreat, that he
was to be photographed. What for? A fancy of hers--she wanted to have
his likeness. Half-length, full-length, full-face, profile. Only when
the pictures were sent home did he discover, that she did not want them
for herself, but to send to her mother. It was high time she should see
what the man was like who alone made life worth living for her only
child. That she should draw her mother into an affair of the kind of
which women do not, as a rule, boast to their families, seemed to him
peculiarly bad taste. "What," he cried, "you have told your mother the
whole story?"

"My mother is a Spaniard, she will guess what one leaves unsaid."

"And you are not ashamed that she should know?"

"That is why I am sending her your likeness; she will then understand
that, on the contrary, I have every reason to be proud."

What she did not consider it necessary to explain to him was, that she
had palmed off a complete romance upon the Marquise de Henares, to the
effect that Wilhelm had saved her life at Ault while bathing, that he
was a celebrated German revolutionist, and the future President of the
German Republic, to whom she was affording a refuge in her house
because, for the time being, he was obliged to be in hiding from the
German secret police, and so forth, and so forth.

The marquise believed every word. In her answer, she certainly
reproached her daughter gently for having anything to do with foreign
conspirators, but otherwise praised her evidence of gratitude toward
her preserver, and frankly expressed her admiration for the handsome
person of this interesting German. She even inclosed a note to him, in
which she thanked him from her overflowing mother's heart for all he
had done for her only child, and adjured him to be very prudent. He
could make nothing out of it, and Pilar declared that she was equally