k from parade, he saw him
and beckoned him to follow, and as soon as they were alone, he said:

"You are free, as you have been allowed to purchase your discharge."

"Good heavens!" the poet stammered, "how am I to ..."

"That is already done," the General replied. "You are free."

"How is it possible? How can I thank your Excellency!"

"You owe me no thanks," he replied; "Frau von Kubinyi bought you out."

The poor poet's heart seemed to stop; he could not speak, nor even
stammer a word; but with a low bow, he rushed out and tore wildly
through the streets, until he reached the mansion of the woman whom he
had so misunderstood, quite out of breath; he must see her again, and
throw himself at her feet.

"Where are you going to?" the porter asked him.

"To Frau von Kubinyi's."

"She is not here."

"Not here?"

"She has gone away."

"Gone away? Where to?"

"She started for Paris two hours ago."

DELILA

In a former reminiscence,[6] we made the acquaintance of a lady, who had
done the police many services in former years, and whom we called Wanda
von Chabert. It is no exaggeration, if we say that she was at the same
time the cleverest, the most charming and the most selfish woman whom
one could possibly meet. She was certainly not exactly what is called
beautiful, for neither her face nor her figure were symmetrical enough
for that, but if her head was not beautiful in the style of the antique,
neither like the _Venus_ of Milo nor Ludoirsi's _Juno_, it was, on the
other hand, in the highest sense delightful like the ladies whom Wateau
and Mignard painted. Everything in her little face, and in its frame of
soft brown hair was attractive and seductive, her low, Grecian forehead,
her bright, almond shaped eyes, her small nose, and her full, voluptuous
lips, her middling height and her small waist with its, perhaps, almost
too full bust, and above all her walk, that half indolent, half
coquettish swaying of her broad hips, were all maddeningly alluring.

[Footnote 6: An Exotic Prince.]

And this woman, who was born for love, was as eager for pleasure and as
amorous as few other women have even been, but for that very reason she
never ran any danger of allowing her victims to escape her from pity; on
the contrary, she soon grew tired of each of her favorites, and her
connection with the police was then extremely useful to her, in order to
get rid of an inconvenient, or jealous lover.

Before the w