sence from
the clubs and drawing-rooms. Henry Tannhaeuser is not the style of man to
miss London in the season, unless there is a big attraction elsewhere."
... The air was heavy with flowers, and in the windows opening on the
balcony were thronged smartly dressed folk; it was May and the weather
warm. The Landgrave's musicale had been anticipated eagerly by all
music-lovers in town; Wartburg, the large house on the hill, hardly
could hold the invited....

The evening was young when Mrs. Minne, charming and a widow, stood with
her pretty nun-like face inclined to the tall, black Mr. Biterolf, the
basso of the opera. She had been sonnetted until her perfectly arched
eyebrows were famous. Her air of well-bred and conventual calm never had
been known to desert her; and her high, light, colorless soprano had
something in it of the sexless timbre of the boy chorister. With her
blond hair pressed meekly to her shapely head she was the delight and
despair of poets, painters and musicians, for she turned an impassable
cheek to their pleadings. Mrs. Minne would never remarry; and it was her
large income that made water the mouth of the impecunious artistic
tribe....

Just now she seemed interested in Karl Biterolf, but even his vanity did
not lead him to hope. They resumed their conversation, while about them
the crush became greater, and the lights burned more brilliantly. In the
whirl of chatter and conventional compliment stood Elizabeth Landgrave,
the niece of the host, receiving her uncle's guests. Mrs. Minne regarded
her, a sweet, unpleasant smile playing about her thinly carved lips.

"Yet the men rave over her, Mr. Biterolf. Is it not so? What chance has
a passee woman with such a pure, delicate slip of a girl? And she sings
so well. I wonder if she intends going on the stage?" Her companion
leaned over and whispered something.

"No, no, I'll never believe it. What? Henry Tannhaeuser in love with that
girl! Jamais, jamais!"

"But I tell you it's so, and her refusal sent him after--well, that
other one." Biterolf looked wise.

"You mean to tell me that he could forget her for an old woman? Stop, I
know you are going to say that the Holda is as fascinating as Diana of
Poitiers and has a trick of making boys, young enough to be her
grandsons, fall madly in love with her. I know all that is said in her
favor. No one knows who she is, where she came from, or her age. She's
fifty if she's a day, and she makes up in the