r fails to follow with interest."

"A charming game!" cried Jansen, and his face darkened. "I would rather
see the most stolid Esquimaux or Hottentot standing before my works
than one of these highly-cultured, artificially-excited devotees of
art, hungry for emotion--seeking in everything nothing but their own
gratification, and worrying a really earnest man to death by their
conceited coquetry with all that he holds most sacred. There is nothing
which will awe them into silence, or even make them forget themselves.
Just as they interest themselves in living creatures only so far as
they tend to increase their own importance, so all works of art exist
for them only so far as they can be made of use in setting off their
beloved _ego_. This same woman visited me once before, a good while
ago, and I was so rude to her that I hoped I had shaken her off
forever. But even rudeness excites these _blase_ women of the world,
just as _Pumpernickel_ does the palate when one has been eating too
much sugar-cake. In reality, she cares as little for sculpture as for
anything else; unless, perhaps, the study of the nude interests her.
And she is here in Munich in search of very different things--trying to
gain proselytes for the new school of music."

"I can't help thinking you are rather unjust to her. The very fact that
she feels a respect for you, and even a sort of secret fear, shows that
you interest her. That is one thing I like about these women; they are
strongly attracted by anything that represents power, and is capable of
producing something."

"Yes," laughed Jansen, "until this power humbles itself to be a
foot-stool for their restless little feet; then it will be thrown
aside. No, my dear fellow, the only reason these comets are not more
particular is because they are forced to keep adding to their tails;
I'd be willing to bet that even our harmless little Rosebud will not be
thought too insignificant to be enrolled in her body-guard. But let her
do whatever she likes--what difference does it make to us? But where
have you been hiding yourself these last few days? and what is the
matter with you now? You are staring at the Russian's visiting-card as
if your senses had suddenly been spirited away to Siberia!"

"It is nothing," stammered Felix, putting down the card again. He had
read the name of the hotel on it; it happened to be the same one in
which Irene was stopping. "'Countess Nelida F----;' I assure you I
never he