uite friendly and talkative. When he took leave of
her, Wanda gave him her card, on the back of which her address was
written, and he immediately gave her his in return.

She thanked him and rode off, looking at his name as she did so; it was
Count T----.

She felt inclined to give a shout of pleasure when she found that the
noble quarry, which she had been hunting so long, had at last come into
her preserves, but she did not even turn her head round to look at him,
such was the command which that woman had over herself and her
movements.

Count T---- called upon her the very next day, soon he came every day,
and in less than a month after that innocent adventure in Hyde Park, he
was at her feet; for when Frau von Chabert made up her mind to be loved,
nobody was able to withstand her. She became the Count's confidante
almost as speedily as she had become his mistress, and every day, and
almost every hour, she, with the most delicate coquetry, laid fresh
fetters on the Hungarian Samson. Did she love him?

Certainly she did, after her own fashion, and at first she had not the
remotest idea of betraying him; she even succeeded in completely
concealing her connection with him, not only in London but also in
Vienna.

Then the war of 1859 broke out, and like most Hungarian and Polish
refugees, Count T---- hurried off to Italy, in order to place himself at
the disposal of that great and patriotic Piedmontese statesman, Cavour.

Wanda went with him, and took the greatest interest in his revolutionary
intrigues in Turin; for some time she seemed to be his right hand, and
it looked as if she had become unfaithful to her present patrons.
Through his means, she soon became on intimate terms with Piedmontese
government circles, and that was his destruction.

A young Italian diplomatist, who frequently negotiated with Count T----,
or in his absence, with Wanda, fell madly in love with the charming
Polish woman, and she, who was never cruel, more especially when she
herself had caught fire, allowed herself to be conquered by the
handsome, intellectual, daring man. In measure as her passion for the
Italian increased, so her feelings for Count T---- declined, and at last
she felt that her connection with him was nothing but a hindrance and a
burden, and as soon as Wanda had reached that point, her adorer was as
good as lost.

Count T---- was not a man whom she could just coolly dismiss, or with
whom she might venture to trifle