“May I then hazard the suggestion that you have withdrawn from your former calling at some advantage to yourself?” “Oh, I am not stupid!” she smiled back. “There is nothing which it is more unnecessary to assure me of, Countess.” There was a momentary flutter in the beautiful woman’s eye, and an imperceptible something within her seemed to come to a standstill. Had he known who she was and wanted to play with her a little, and would he now blazon abroad the fact that she frequented such places secretly? Wenk laughed aloud. “Or can it be that the coroneted handkerchief comes from the trunk of some countess travelling to Asiatic ports, as Sherlock Holmes would argue? No, dear lady, we are quits. We shall both comport ourselves more circumspectly in future when we are among our fellow-mortals. I shall put a stupid diamond on my finger, and you will use a monogram without a coronet on your handkerchiefs, Countess....” “Hush!” she said, in agitation. “But even such precautions would serve no turn!” “I do not understand you.” “You force me to pay you compliments. I am seeking vainly for a suitable way of expressing myself so that I may convey to you my conviction that the ‘countess’ in you cannot anyhow be suppressed.” “He will be asking me to sup with him directly,” she said to herself. “He evidently wants to start a romance,” and the idea amused her. From sheer exuberance of energy she had come hither, seeking nothing in her masquerade but relief from boredom, and lo! she had landed a prize like this! “At any rate, I need not have taken a circuitous route to Schramm’s!” she said laughingly. At the gaming-table nothing sensational was going on. She decided to feint with him, and said sarcastically: “You try to disguise your compliments as well as you do yourself, Herr von Wenk. I am obliged to accept them, since they take me unawares.” “I merely mean,” persisted Wenk, “that the removal of the coronet from your monogram cannot remove the stamp of nobility from your brow.” “I hope you are still masquerading!” “As an enraptured reader of sentimental romances, you mean? In any case, dear lady.... But is this quite the place to carry on a conversation which aims at a more serious turn?” She answered, looking him up and down haughtily and deliberately: “Does that mean that you are inviting me to sup with you?”