“It is not his success alone which is so exasperating; it is because the critics, as usual, will do nothing but compare the young Franz with the old Schoenlein; while the public, with its natural inconstancy, begins to discover that Schoenlein is no longer young. It is a sad thing,” she pursued, with a faint smile, “for those who have reigned supreme over audiences to feel their dynasty is drawing to a close—sad for those who have swayed all hearts, to feel that another is now to usurp their place. We women know what it is, in a slight degree, when we grow old. Do we ever grow old, and _know_ it? When our glass still tells us we are young, that the bloom is still upon our cheeks, the lustre in our eyes, the witchery in our smiles, now as of yore—and yet what the glass tells us, what our feelings confirm, we do _not_ see mirrored in the admiration of those around us! We also know what it is when we see our former adorers pass to newer beauties, and we perhaps overhear such a phrase spoken of us as, ‘Yes, she has been handsome!’ But even we cannot know the actor’s triumph or the actor’s humiliation. To feel that our presence is the signal for applause, that every word we utter is listened to with eager interest, that every part we play is an image which we engrave upon the minds of thousands, there to abide as a thing of beauty and of wonder—this is beyond us.” “But, my dear Madame Röckel, I see no diminution of admiration for Schoenlein in Berlin. Surely no audience can be more enthusiastic. Why should he fear a rival?” “You might as well ask a beauty,” she replied, “why she is jealous of a woman less pretty than herself. The _why_ is not to be explained by logic, for envy does not _calculate_—it _feels_.” “Yet, when Franz comes to Berlin, which will be next month, there will then be no possible doubt as to which is the finer actor.” “Perhaps not. But the public will nevertheless applaud Franz; and however slightly they do so, to the envious ears of Schoenlein it will sound like thunder.” The clock striking twelve warned me to depart, for in Berlin they keep early hours; and I went away thinking of what I had just heard, and feeling no small contempt for Schoenlein’s preposterous jealousy: “What a contemptible feeling is envy!—as if only one person in the world had a right to admiration!” At that moment I stepped into a droschke, and was driving to my rooms, when I passed that miserable puppy Fürstenberg, whom, I am sorry to say, little * * * admires so much; though, for the life of me, I never could see wherefore. Yet this uncouth German, aping the dandy, usurps all her conversation, even when I am by! It is not that I am jealous, for that is not my character; but I _cannot_ bear to see so charming a girl so miserably deceived in any one as she is in Fürstenberg! CHAPTER II.