Lassalle's face changed yet again, and the thought of the Countess died out of it as he caught sight of the graceful writing of Sophie de Solutzew. What memories it brought back of the first real passion of his life, when, whirled off his feet by an unsuspected current, enchanted yet astonished to be no longer the easy conqueror throwing crumbs of love to poor fluttering woman, he had asked the Russian girl to share his strife and triumphs. That he should want to marry her had been as amazing to him as her refusal. What talks they had had in this very room, when she passed through Berlin with her ailing father! How he had suffered from the delay of her decision, foreseen, yet none the less paralyzing when it came. And yet no, not paralyzing; he could not but recognize that the shock had in reality been a stimulation. It was in the reaction against his misery, in the subtle pleasure of a temptation escaped despite himself, and of regained freedom to work for his great ideals, that he had leapt for the first time into political agitation. The episode had made him reconsider, like a great sickness or a bereavement. It had shown him that life was slipping, that afternoon was coming, that in a few more years he would be forty, that the "Wonder-Child," as Humboldt had styled him, was grown to mature man, and that all the vent he had as yet found for his great gifts was a series of scandalous law-suits and an esoteric volume of the philosophy of Heraclitus the Dark. And now, coming to him in the midst of his great spurt, this letter from the quieter world of three years ago--though he himself had provoked it--seemed almost of dreamland. Its unexpected warmth kindled in him something of the old glow. Brussels! She was in western Europe again, then. Yes, she still possessed the Heine letter he required; only it was in her father's possession, and she had written to him to Russia to send it on. Her silence had been due to pique at the condition Lassalle had attached to acceptance of the mere friendship she offered him, to wit, that, like all his friends, she must write him two letters to his one. "Inconsiderate little creature!" he thought, smiling but half resentful. But, though she had now only that interest for him which the woman who has refused one never quite loses, she stirred again his sense of the foolish emptiness of loveless life. His brilliant reputation as scholar and orator and potential leader of men; his personal fascination, woven of beauty, wit, elegance, and a halo of conquest, that made him the lion of every social gathering, and his little suppers to celebrities the talk of Berlin--what a hollow farce it all was! And his thoughts flew not to Sophie but to the new radiance that had flitted across his life. He called up the fading image of the brilliant Helene von Dönniges whom he had met a year before at the Hirsemenzels. He lived again through that wonderful evening, that almost Southern episode of mutual love at first sight.