etter to her and more agreeable than masks. Moreover, the
baron was to her thinking a finished aesthete, an excellent judge
in the whole realm of art, and in this regard she did not deceive
herself greatly. The opinions on art and philosophy, which he
proclaimed, interested her through their novelty, and the
expressions which he used purposely, though sometimes brutal and
verging on the gutter, roused her curiosity by their singularity
and insolence. She imitated him in speech; in his presence she
guarded her lips lest they might let something escape through
which she would earn the title of "shepherdess."

"You are very far from the Arcadian condition, in which I meet
people here at every step. You are intricate; you are like an
orchid, one stem of which has a flower in the form of a
butterfly, while the next seems like a death's head."

She interrupted him with a brief laugh:

"A butterfly is flat."

Her laugh had a sharp sound, for the cold gleam of the baron's
eyes fell on her boldly and persistently.

"No," contradicted he, "no; the combination of a death's head
with a butterfly makes a dissonance. That bites and sticks a new
pin in the soul."

"But the Greek harmony?" she inquired.

With a flattering smile, which conquered her, the baron answered:

"Never mention harmony. That is the milk with which babes were
nourished. We subsist on something else. You like game, do you
not? but only when it begins to decay. There is no good game,
except that which is rank. Very well, we subsist on a world in
decay. This is true, but you speak of that darned sock; namely,
harmony--ha! ha! ha! You think sometimes one way and sometimes
another. Your soul is full of bites! You are idyllic and also
satirical. You jeer at idyls, and still, at odd times, you yearn
for one somewhat. Have I touched the point accurately? Are my
words true?"

"True," answered Irene, dropping her eyelids.

She dropped her lids because she was ashamed of the discovery
which the baron had made in her, and for this cause as well, that
she felt his breath on her face, and caught the odor of certain
strange perfumes which came from him. His eyes sought hers and
strove to pour into them their cold gleam, which was also a
burning one. He strove to take her hand, but she withdrew it, and
he, with lowered, drawling, and somewhat nasal tones, said:

"You wish, and again you do not wish; you feel the cry of life in
you and try to turn it into a lyric