Paul awoke next morning with what the hardheaded Germans call a moral headache. He had a bad taste in his conscience, and he decided to call as soon as possible on Rue. It was nearly eleven before he got to her house. As she had no rehearsal for Siegfried, she received him. He thought that she was distant, but he talked fast and earnestly, and soon the ice began to thaw. Paul felt happy. Helena appealed to his decadent taste, but Rue was as the perfume of the morning. He told her so, and explained at great length and with considerable ingenuity how he came in the company of a lone young woman. Her two chaperons--Paul fancied two sounded more imposing--had gone by mistake to the garden of the Sonne Hotel; that is why he left so soon with the lady, who was only a recent acquaintance. He felt Rue’s eyes on him as he wove this roundelay, and, feeling hot about the neck and a little fearful of his ability to keep up the strain much longer, he suddenly grasped the girl, crying out, and most sincerely: “O Rue! why do we waste time talking about a woman I never cared for and never expect to see again. I love you, I love you, my darling! Kiss me just once and tell me you care a little for me.” As he fell upon her she was taken off her guard, and the inevitable happened. She kissed Paul and he placed a big ring on her finger, and left the house an hour later an engaged and also a much be-perjured man. He was happy until he thought of Helena. That evening when Siegfried was finished Paul walked arm and arm with Rue down the hill to Sammet’s. As they entered they brushed against three ladies, and Paul said aloud: “Oh, Lord!” The next day Rue had to go to a rehearsal for the Rhine Daughters in Die Götterdämmerung, and Paul was whistling the Spring Song from Die Walküre in his room when a knock at his door brought the news that a lady wished to see him. He wondered who the lady was, and, as the parlor of the house had been turned into a bedroom, he put on his hat and went into the hall, to be confronted by Helena, shamefaced but resolute. “Come out into the street,” he begged, for in her implacable eyes he read signs of the approaching storm. They silently descended to a lower étage. Then she turned and faced him: “So you didn’t come to me this morning,” she said. Roumania excited was a stirring spectacle, nevertheless Paul wished that he was up the Hudson playing golf. He endeavored to placate her. Helena, angered at her loss of dignity in condescending to call on this man, reproached him bitterly, and it seemed to him that she was about to sing the picturesque songs of hate which Carmen Sylva has made known to us, when they reached the street. Then her rage vanished in a moment.