possess. It has already been mentioned that she had been attending
lectures on the Nietzschean philosophy.

Those were the days--not so very long ago, though they seem remote
enough now--when a certain class of high-browed and serious persons
accepted works of modern German philosophers as containing a new gospel
which none who desired intellectual freedom, enlightenment, and
efficiency could afford to neglect. The theories of "the Will to Power"
and of Might being equivalent to Right are already hopelessly
discredited in this country by recent exhibitions of the way in which
they work out in practice. But it was not so then, and Edna, who liked
to feel that she was one of the elect and in the advance guard of
Culture, readily imbibed as much of the Nietzschean doctrine as could be
boiled down for her in a single lecture. She would not, of course, have
thought of regulating her own actions on such principles, any more than,
in all probability, did their author himself. But she was very anxious
to see some one else do so, and the young Count seemed to have been
formed by Nature for Nietzsche's typical "Blond Beast," if he only chose
to divulge his possibilities. Unfortunately, he did not seem even to
suspect them; he remained quite oppressively mild and amiable. She very
nearly gave him up in despair once when he timidly presented her with a
pair of mittens which he had knitted for her himself. However, a day
came when she saw him under a less discouraging aspect.

They were at lunch, to which he had invited himself as usual, and Ruby
had asked her brother how it was that in all his hunting expeditions he
had never managed to slay a dragon.

"Never saw one to slay, Kiddie," he replied. "They seem scarce about
here."

The Court Chamberlain, from behind the King's chair, took it upon
himself to explain that there were no longer any dragons in existence,
the few that remained having been exterminated by the late King's
orders.

"Oh!" exclaimed Ruby, "I _did_ so want to see a dragon! And now I never
shall!"

"If you wish it, little Princess," said Count von Rubenfresser kindly,
"you shall see mine."

"_Yours!_" cried Ruby, quite forgetting her dislike for him in her
excitement. "Have you _really_ got a dragon--a real _live_ one?"

"A real live one--and almost full-grown," he replied. "My poor dear
Father had a pair, but they were killed. Mine is the last of the breed.
I discovered it myself when I was a child in a