She was as beautiful as any fair one whose likeness he
had kept in his love archives; a tall, proud figure, large dark-blue eyes
which evidently dreamed of love behind their long, shading lashes, and
often seemed to wake from this ardent trance of bliss with a sudden
upward glance, blooming lips for which many a godly man would have
relinquished his soul's salvation without hesitation, an unusually fair
complexion with satiny reflections, and a really regal coronal of rich
golden hair--all in all a magnificent creature, such as Nature does not
often create. This was a prize for which the best man might strive.
That he would ever weary of her, Linden could not now imagine. When he
fancied that she was leaning on his arm, walking with the light, floating
step peculiar to her along the Chiaja, or the Lung Arno, or that he was
sitting with her on the shore of Viarreggio and she leaned her head upon
his breast, it seemed as if palaces, sky, and sea would shine brighter
than of yore as it were in vivified colours. True, Fraeulein von Markwald
was not yet twenty, and he might be her father. But need he hesitate on
that score? At the utmost the difference in age could only disturb her,
and it did not. To him her nineteen years were but one charm; the more
perhaps the most powerful of her attractions. In her radiant, vigorous
youth, he might hope to rejuvenate himself. How had he been so blind as
not to perceive it weeks ago! How could he have waited until Thiel's
harsh warning and Else's importunity thrust him into the right path?

Of course it had not escaped the notice of an old practitioner like him
that he had made an impression upon Fraeulein von Markwald. The blood
which mounted into her cheeks when he approached and spoke to her, the
unconsciously seeking glance with which she followed him when he went
away, the tone of assumed jest, but genuine reproach, with which she
asked if he had selected another poor victim, when he had talked with
another lady somewhat longer or somewhat more earnestly than usual, were
traitors which but too officiously revealed the secret of her heart. She
did not even defend herself. She had been too short a time at court and
in society to be versed in the strategic arts of love or coquetry.
Almost in their first conversation she had confessed, with charming
frankness, that everybody was warning her against him, she had been told
that he was an extremely dangerous man, she was really