nk. But she became a
habitue, and took a very natural liking to hear again the anecdotes
indicating how matters moved in Germany and Russia, where her childhood
and early girlhood had passed.

One evening, she arrived late. She was exasperated: Antonino had imbibed
his master's imperturbability and seemed to meet her advances with
rebuking chilliness. A marked gravity governed them both of late; they
shut themselves up for hours in their study, but instead of the silence
becoming artists, noises of hammering and filing metal sounded, and the
chimney belched black smoke of which the neighbors would have had reason
to complain.

"A fresh craze!" thought Cesarine, dismissing curiosity from her mind.

Dull and decorous though the marchioness' salon was, it might be an
ante-chamber to a more brilliant resort beyond, while the laboratory of
science leads to no place where a pretty woman cares to be.

The Marchioness had remembered her meeting with Cesarine at Munich and
was polite enough to express her regret that her offer of a
companionship had not been accepted. "All her pets had married well,"
she observed, as much as to say that she would have found no difficulty
in paving the lovely one with a superior to Clemenceau.

Soon Madame Clemenceau had become the favorite at the chateau; and,
tardy as she was, the servant hastened to usher her in to her reserved
chair. It was placed in the row of honor in the large, lofty
drawing-room, hung with tapestry and damask curtains, and filled with
funereally garbed men and powdered old dowagers. The late comer was
struck by their eyes being directed with unusual interest upon a
vocalist. He stood before the kind of throne on which the marchioness
conceitedly installed herself.

He was singing in German, and he accompanied himself on a zither. He had
an excellent baritone voice, and the ballad, simple and unfinished,
became a tragic _scena_ from his skill in repeating some exceptionally
talented teacher's instructions.

To Cesarine, the strains awakened dormant meditations; aspirations
frozen in her placid home, began to melt; a curtain was gradually drawn
aside to reveal a world where woman reigned over all. What she had heard
from her grandmother of the magic splendor which Wanda had missed and
Iza enjoyed, flashed up before her, and her heart warmed delightedly in
the voluptuous intoxication of unspeakable bliss. On the wings of this
melody, which, in truth, merely sought to