e, and was ready to mount again had any of us offered to bear him
company. His invitation, given with a heartiness that mocked his bidden
companions, found no acceptance. We were all for our own planet in the
morning. It was abundantly clear that revels must be the exception at
Artenberg. Victoria was earnestly of this opinion. In the first place,
the physical condition of William Adolphus was deplorable; he leered
rueful roguishness out of bilious eyes, and Victoria could not endure
the sight of him; secondly, she was sure that I had said something--what
she did not know, but something--to Elsa; for Elsa had been found
crying over her coffee in bed in the morning.

"And every word you say to her now is of such supreme importance,"
Victoria observed, standing over my writing-table.

I took my cigarette out of my mouth and answered perversely enough, but
with an eye to truth all the same.

"Nothing that I say to her now is of the very least importance,
Victoria."

"What do you mean?" she cried.

"Much what you do," I rejoined, and fell to smoking again.

Victoria began to walk about the room. I endured patiently. My eyes were
fixed on Waldenweiter. I wondered idly whether the scene of despair had
been enacted yet.

"It's not the smallest good making ourselves unhappy about it," Victoria
announced, just as she was on the turn at the other end of the room.

"Not the smallest," I agreed.

"It's much too late."

"A great deal too late."

Victoria darted down and kissed my cheek.

"After all, she ought to think herself very lucky," she decided. "I'm
sure everybody else considers her so."

"Under such circumstances," said I, "it's sheer perversity in her to
have her own feelings on the matter."

"But you said something that upset her last night," remarked my sister,
with a return to the point which I hoped she had lost sight of. This
time I lowered my guard in surrender.

"Certainly. I tried to make love to her," said I.

"There, you see!" she cried reproachfully. Her censure of the irrelevant
intrusion of such a subject was eloquent and severe.

"It was all Wetter's fault," I remarked, sighing.

"Good gracious! what's it got to do with Wetter? I hate the man!" As she
spoke her eyes fell on a box which stood on my writing-table. "What's
that?" she asked.

"Diamonds," I answered. "The necklace for Elsa."

"You bought the big one you spoke of? Oh, Augustin, how fortunate!"

I looked up at Victoria and