friendliness. He was to learn later on that this
amiable, frank, unfailingly good-tempered acquaintance had made the
most ill-natured, not to say defamatory remarks about him, before Pilar
and her whole circle of friends.

One afternoon Anne announced that "the consumptive poet was below, and
begged to be allowed to pay his respects to Madame la Comtesse."
"Another great man, no doubt," thought Wilhelm, sadly resigned to his
fate. To his surprise Pilar turned furiously red, and said angrily:

"I am not at home!"

Anne retired, but came back again immediately.

"He sent to ask," she said, in a tone of studied indifference, which
ineffectually concealed her inward satisfaction, "what he had done to
deserve madame's displeasure, and why he should be treated like a
stranger?"

"Anne," cried Pilar, her voice quivering with rage, "how dare you bring
me such a message! If the man does not go instantly, then order Don
Pablo and Auguste to see that he does."

The maid withdrew, and Pilar, without waiting for Wilhelm's question,
muttered resentfully:

"A man I was kind to out of pity, because he was such a poor wretch, an
unknown poet, and bound to die soon--and now he is impudent and
intrusive. But that is just what one may expect when one is
kind-hearted."

Wilhelm thought no more of this episode, and had almost forgotten that
it had ever occurred, when one day soon afterward a friend of Pilar's,
the Countess Cuerbo, came to call. She was the wife of a fabulously
rich Spanish banker, whose house, racing-stables, picture gallery,
carriages, and dinners were among the marvels of Paris. This lady's
most striking characteristic was a vulgar boastfulness, such as is
seldom met with even among the worst upstarts of the Bourse. It was
said that she had originally been a washerwoman or a cigarette maker in
Seville, but this was perhaps an exaggeration. So much, however, was
certain, that her husband had begun in a very small way, and had
received his title at the accession of King Alfonso, in return for
financial services which had materially helped toward the
re-establishment of the throne. The Countess Cuerbo could now give
points as to pride of station to the bluest-blooded grandee. She
associated exclusively with persons of title, and strove, in every
possible way, to play the "grande dame." She was always bedizened with
the most costly diamonds, and so shamelessly rouged that she must have
been mobbed had she gone thro