rks to his opponent.
Rosenbusch, who would probably otherwise have waited for Jansen, had
offered his services in escorting home the young Fraeulein who had
fainted earlier in the evening.

The artist and the countess now stood alone confronting one another, in
the dimly-lighted room. From the street below they could hear the
departing guests as they went away, laughing, talking, and singing.

"I beg for a mild punishment, countess," began Jansen, smiling. "Of
course you have only detained me in order to exact a penance in the
absence of witnesses. I thank you for this kind intention, although, to
be honest, I rather favor a public execution if the head really must
come off!"

"You are very, very wicked!" she answered, slowly shaking her head as
if she were deeply in earnest in what she said. "You fear neither God
nor man, least of all that which seems to many the most terrible--the
anger of a woman. And, for that reason, I shall not succeed in
punishing you for your sins as you have deserved."

"No," he said. "I submit voluntarily to any penance you may put upon
me. How I wish that by so doing I could rid myself of my old fault of
thinking aloud without first looking around to see who may be
listening!"

She walked up and down the room with folded arms, gazing thoughtfully
before her.

"Why should we disguise ourselves?" she said, after a pause. "It is not
worth the trouble to deceive the thoughtless masses, and we cannot fool
the wise few. Let us drop our masks, dear friend. I think exactly as
you do, only perhaps I feel it even more keenly because I am a woman.
For me, too, music is merely a bath. But I enjoy it more passionately
because a woman, who is much more restricted than you men, is more
grateful for every opportunity to cast off all her chains and fetters,
and plunge her soul in a great excited and exciting element. To me such
an element is music; of course not all music--not that shallow kind
that merely bubbles and murmurs pleasantly, yet scarcely rises to my
knees, but that fathomless music whose billows break over my head. To
me Sebastian Bach is like a shoreless sea, 'and it is sweet to plunge
into its depths.' But do not let us talk of the petty souls, the
bunglers and the underlings! With you great men--you yourself have said
as much--does the material make such a great difference? When you see a
work of Phidias, does not your whole being sink as if into divinely
cool waters? And that is the m