re regulating them, he would occupy himself with
completing his new plan. He turned to Maryan:

"Will you be my partner? It would be difficult for me to get on
without you. You have an excellent feeling for art--you are
subtle--"

"Why not," answered Maryan. "But one should go first of all and
examine the field; one should go to America before the
exhibition."

"Naturally, before the exhibition, so as to begin action before
it is over. In the question of capital--"

"I will sell my personal property, which has some value, and
incur another debt," said Maryan, carelessly.

The baron halted; he thought awhile; his faded face took on that
expression of roguery which the French call polissonnerie;
joyousness seized him.

"We will shoot off!" cried he; and he made a movement with his
foot like that which a street-sweeper makes to catch a bark shoe
thrown up in the air.

Maryan rose, shook himself out of his lethargy, and said, almost
with delight:

"It is an idea. To America!"

Then from the abyss of the immensely deep and broad cathedra
Kranitski's voice was heard, orphan-like, timid:

"But will you take me with you, my dears? When you shoot off you
will take me with you, will you not?"

There was no answer. The baron was sitting already before the
organ and had begun to play some grand church composition; in the
dignified sound of that music Tristan made a knightly bow to
Isolde, and the "Triumph of Death," with its dark outline, was
reflected on the background of Alberich's white habit, while the
saints painted with golden haloes on the windows clasped their
pale hands above their bright robes.

CHAPTER VII

Baron Emil said at times to Irene:

"You have the aristocracy of intellect. Your mind is original.
There is in you much delicate irony. You are not deceived with
painted pots."

These words caused her pleasure of the same sort as that which
the praise of a mountaineer causes an inexperienced traveller
when he tells him that he knows how to climb neck-breaking
summits. Much irony had flowed into her mind from certain
mysterious sides of her life. But she had become conscious of
this now for the first time, under the guidance and influence of
the baron. He awed her by the originality of his language and
ideas, by the absolute sincerity of his disbelief, and his
egotism. During childhood she had seen a mask which astounded
her, and struck her in the very heart. Thenceforth everything
seemed b