all South
Germany. In plain words, you could not see a man come into the
drawing-room without wishing to make him fall in love with you. We want
to monopolize genius--you to monopolize the love of man. You have the
mania of loving, more common than it is suspected, especially by those
who would have us believe that good society is a fold where snowy lambs
are led about from the cradle to the butcher's shambles, by pastors
carrying crooks decked with sky blue ribbons. The feeling is a craving
in you--an involuntary and invincible instinct which was to have its
inevitable end. You turned from a man who sincerely loved you to make a
conquest of another whose heart was engaged."

"Stop!" interrupted Cesarine, triumphantly for she had detected genuine
feeling the last tone used by the living enigma. "I know you now! you
are the man whom you say really loved me. Down with the masks! You
are--"

"Not so loud!"

"You are Major von Sendlingen!"

"Say 'Colonel' and you will be exact. Yes; I am the lover whom you cast
off in favor of the student Ruprecht, as this Clemenceau was called when
he pottered about Europe, sketching ruined doorways and broken windows
and dreamed of architectural structures. A man whom destiny had chosen
to be the greatest demolisher of the age! what sarcasm!"

"Well, you should be the last to complain! Was it like devotion to me
that you should try to abduct La Belle Stamboulane in the public street?

"To remove her from your path! She was your rival in the music hall!
Love her, love a Jewess? You do not understand men--you fancy they are
put here for your pleasure, safeguard and redemption. An error! We are
neither your joy or your punishment. Let that pass. You married the
student Ruprecht who turned out to be your cousin Felix Clemenceau. For
a time you played the part of the idolizing young wife admirably. You
never reproached his father's head for the murder of your aunt and he
said never a word about the old beggar-sovereign Baboushka. In your
gladness at having stolen the man away from Fraulein Daniels, I believe
you imagined that it was love you felt. Not a bit of it! Love is the sun
of the soul--all light, heat, motion and creativeness! there are no more
two loves than two suns. There may be two or many passions, but not two
loves. If a man loved twice, it would not be love!"

The hard man spoke so tenderly that his hearer dared not scoff.

"He ran through your witchery after a while, b