eading the fire like a burned
child, wanted to singe itself in this new flame; all of which
Rosenbusch received with a quiet sigh.

"The fact is," he said, "a countess like this is not so very dangerous.
It goes without saying, that in all intercourse with her one must
respect certain limits when one is a poor fool of a painter who has to
let himself be snubbed even by a glove-maker. But if, on the other
hand, a female demon like this should really take it into her head to
elope with one of my sort to Italy or Siberia, let us say--well, she
will know what she is about; and in the mean time we can let things go
as Heaven wills."

Amid talk of this sort they had reached the hotel, in the first story
of which a row of lighted windows had already shown them where the
female autocrat of all the arts was holding her court. Felix pulled his
hat down lower over his forehead, and sprang up the stairs so rapidly
that Rosenbusch was left behind breathless.

"You are an extraordinary fellow!" he cried, laughing, after he had
overtaken him at the top. "It takes a good deal of diplomacy to get you
started, but once started, you can't get there soon enough."

Felix made no reply, for just then a servant opened a side-door and
they entered a spacious _salon_, which resounded with the last notes of
one of Chopin's nocturnes, with which the hostess herself had opened
the _soiree_.

A rather mixed company was grouped about the piano, mostly young people
with long hair and pale faces, of the music-of-the-future sort; mingled
with these a few diplomatists, officers, journalists, and people
without any other profession than that of knowing everybody and being
introduced everywhere. The professor of aesthetics advanced to meet the
new arrivals with a sort of host-like cordiality, and shook hands with
them. He wore an old-fashioned blue dress-coat with gold buttons, a
yellow pique waistcoat, white summer trousers, and a stiff, black
cravat, that compelled him to keep his chin perpetually thrown up.
Stephanopulos emerged from the crowd of enthusiastic courtiers in order
to welcome the guests, which he too did as if he felt himself quite at
home. But now the dense circle divided, and the countess herself swept
up to the new-comers.

She had made an exceedingly becoming toilet--a dark dress of light
material, that left bare her shoulders, which were still youthful in
appearance; and a Venetian point-lace veil, thrown with studied
careless