hair was a
little disordered, which wonderfully added to her beauty. Without
hesitating a moment, Angelica marched through the little path past the
garden, and entered the vestibule.

Her ring was answered by a very old servant with a white,
soldierly-looking mustache, and dressed in a long, silver-buttoned
livery-coat that reached to his knees. He eyed the visitor
suspiciously, took her card, on which there was nothing but "Minna
Engelken," and came back at once, indicating by a silent nod that his
mistress would receive her.

As Angelica entered the stranger was standing in the middle of the
room, in the midst of the warm, greenish light that came through the
closed blinds. She had hastily put up her hair again, but without
special care; and now she greeted her visitor somewhat coldly, with a
scarcely perceptible nod of her exquisite head.

"First of all, I must introduce myself a little more fully than the
very obscure name on my card can have done," began the artist, without
the slightest trace of embarrassment. (She had begun immediately upon
her entrance to study the head, as though at a regular sitting.) "I am
a painter; that is the sole excuse I have for my intrusion upon you. I
met you a short time ago at the Pinakothek. It can hardly be a novelty
to you to have people stop when you go by, or even follow you. But that
a person should intrude into your very house does seem a little too
much. My honored Fraeulein, or should I call you Madame?" (the stranger
shook her head slightly) "I do not know whether you, too, have a
prejudice against women-artists? If you have, I shall certainly appear
to you in a very bad light. And it is true, I must say that this
meddling with brushes and colors doesn't particularly become many of my
colleagues. Although the nine Muses are women, our sex easily get by
association with them an unwomanly touch that is not by any means to
their advantage.--Oh, please keep that position just an instant; the
three-quarters face is especially effective in this light! Yes, it is
true, Fraeulein, I myself know women-artists who think it is prosaic to
put on a clean collar or darn a stocking. And yet--"

"If you would only be kind enough to tell me the motive of your
visit--"

"I was just coming to that. I had really a double motive. First, to beg
your pardon if I drove you away from the gallery by my persistent
staring. You see, my dear Fraeulein--oh, please bend your head a
little--so! If