you are in this house. Life
concocts crazy plots. I assure you, when I looked at those posters, I
thought of everything else in the world but you, Doctor von Kammacher.
And little did I divine that they would ever be of more significance to
me than the advertisements of any ordinary vaudeville."

When Frederick and Willy returned to the dining-room, the chef was gone,
and Lobkowitz and Franck were engaged in the time-worn dispute, whether
Raphael or Michael Angelo is the greater. Willy gave a humorous, though
indignant account of the battle of the Amazons that had just taken place
and how Webster and Forster wanted to insist on Miss Hahlstroem's
appearing that very night. The artists' chivalry was aroused. They
declared unanimously that they would refuse to give up their lovely ward,
even if all New York were to come and besiege them.

Frederick looked at his watch. It was a few minutes past ten. The last
thing Arthur Stoss had said on parting occurred to him, "At half past ten
to the dot, I shall be on the boards behind the footlights." Frederick
told the artists about Arthur Stoss; and Willy Snyders, the man of
initiative, proposed that they go together to Webster and Forster to see
the armless actor's performance.

IV

Ritter lent Frederick one of his evening suits, which fitted him to
perfection, and within less than half an hour the company was sitting in
a box at Webster and Forster's. The enormous hall, in which smoking and
drinking were allowed, was full. Willy estimated that there were about
four or five thousand people present. A number of immense arc-lights
shone in the tobacco smoke like frosty, white moons.

When Frederick and his friends entered, a woman and a slim toreador were
dancing. The music was of an exciting nature, and the character of the
performance and the performer immediately took the artists captive. The
dance was an eccentric mixture of drollness, innocence, and wildness.
When watching the toreador, Frederick felt as if he were in an arena at
Seville; when watching the girl, as if he were near the Gulf of Corinth,
or on one of the islands of the Cyclades. He promptly decided to leave
Spain and follow the lovely dancer to her home in Greece, where she was
his Chloe and he, her Daphnis. Old shepherds sat tippling in a pine grove
dedicated to Pan. From the highland meadows he looked down upon the far
off AEgean Sea beating noiselessly against the rocky coast-line.

The music of