eny that it ever existed. You may not
feel anything now, but that is no reason for declaring that you did not
feel it then. You thought you were in love, and therefore you were. It
is sophistry to try to persuade oneself of the contrary in after days."

"You are a brilliant advocate of your views, Madame la Comtesse, but
nevertheless may one take a momentary delusion--"

"Delusion' And who shall say, my German philosopher, if our whole
existence may not be a delusion?"

"Ah, there you drive my philosophy very hard," murmured Wilhelm.

"Never been in love?" exclaimed the countess, and her lustrous hazel
eyes flashed, "why you would be a monster. I suppose you are nearly
thirty!"

"Nearly thirty-five."

"I congratulate you, Herr Eynhardt, I should have taken you for at
least five years less But whether thirty or thirty-four, it would be
culpable to have reached that age without having been in love. For you
surely are not--a disciple of Abelard."

At this point-blank question Wilhelm reddened and cast down his eyes
like the boy he really was in some respects. She observed his
embarrassment, not without secret amusement.

"But seriously," she went on, "your little bit of love is the best
there is about you men. No, it is the only good thing, the only thing
that makes your bluntness, your selfishness, your want of sentiment
bearable."

"Yes, so the women say. They see nothing in the whole world or in life
but love. They judge men solely according to their capacity for, or
their zeal in, loving. And yet it takes more strength and manliness to
resist love than to give way to it. They only care for men who are
slaves to that passion. I admire those chaste and saintly men who have
been able to cast off the bonds of the flesh. The highest point of the
human mind is only reached by him who has never suffered himself to be
dragged down by his senses. Christ taught the denial of the flesh both
in precept and example. Newton never knew a woman."

"I know nothing about Newton," she retorted, "but Christ had a feeling
heart for the Magdalen and the adulteress. Beside, Christ was a God,
and I am speaking of ordinary mortals, and it is only through woman,
through your love of woman, that you become heroes and demigods."

"No," Wilhelm answered bluntly, "it is woman who drags man down to the
level of the beasts. We have a German fairy tale in which a bear
becomes human as soon as he embraces a woman. In real life it is just