the lady responded to it
cordially; for it is pleasant to have some one to show, and pleasant
to assist some one eager to see: besides, many had petitioned her for a
sight of Alvan; she was used to the request.

'You're not obliged to wait for to-morrow,' she said. 'Come to one of
our gatherings to-night. Alvan will be here.'

'You invite me?'

'Distinctly. Pray, come. He is sure to be here. We have his promise, and
Alvan never fails. Was it not Frau v. Crestow who did us the favour of
our introduction? She will bring you.'

The Frau v. Crestow was a cousin of Clotilde's by marriage, sentimental,
but strict in her reading of the proprieties. She saw nothing wrong in
undertaking to conduct Clotilde to one of those famous gatherings of
the finer souls of the city and the race; and her husband agreed to join
them after the sitting of the Chamber upon a military-budget vote.
The whole plan was nicely arranged and went well. Clotilde dressed
carefully, letting her gold-locks cloud her fine forehead carelessly,
with finishing touches to the negligence, for she might be challenged to
take part in disputations on serious themes, and a handsome young
woman who has to sustain an argument against a man does wisely when she
forearms her beauties for a reserve, to carry out flanking movements if
required. The object is to beat him.

CHAPTER III

Her hostess met her at the entrance of the rooms, murmuring that Alvan
was present, and was there: a direction of a nod that any quick-witted
damsel must pretend to think sufficient, so Clotilde slipped from her
companion and gazed into the recess of a doorless inner room, where
three gentlemen stood, backed by book cases, conversing in blue vapours
of tobacco. They were indistinct; she could see that one of them was
of good stature. One she knew; he was the master of the house, mildly
Jewish. The third was distressingly branded with the slum and gutter
signs of the Ahasuerus race. Three hats on his head could not have done
it more effectively. The vindictive caricatures of the God Pan, executed
by priests of the later religion burning to hunt him out of worship
in the semblance of the hairy, hoofy, snouty Evil One, were not more
loathsome. She sank on a sofa. That the man? Oh! Jew, and fifty times
over Jew! nothing but Jew!

The three stepped into the long saloon, and she saw how veritably
magnificent was the first whom she had noticed.

She sat at her lamb's-wool work in t