He saw himself holding the salon rapt with his wonderful conversation. A silvery voice says suddenly, "No, I don't agree with you." He turns his head in astonishment. O the _piquante_, golden-haired beauty, adorably white and subtle, the dazzling shoulders, the coquettish play of the _lorgnette_, the wit, the daring, the _diablerie_. "So it's a no, a contradiction, the first word I hear of yours. So this is you. Yes, yes, it is even thus I pictured you." She is rising to beg the hostess to introduce them, but he places his hand gently on her arm. "Why? We know each other. You know who I am, and you are Brunehild, Adrienne Cardoville of the _Wandering Jew_, the gold chestnut hair that Captain Korff has told me of, in a word--Helene!" The whole salon regards them, but what are the others but the due audience to this splendid couple taking the centre of the stage by the right divine of a love too great for drawing-room conventions, calling almost for orchestral accompaniment by friend Wagner! He talks no more save to her, he sups at her side, he is in boyish ecstasies over her taste in wines. And when, at four in the morning, he throws her mantle over her shoulders and carries her down the three flights of stairs to her carriage, even her prudish cousinly chaperon seems to accept this as but the natural manner in which the hero takes possession of his heaven-born bride. So rousing to his sleeping passion was his sudden abandonment to this old memory, that he now went to a drawer and rummaged for her photograph. After the Baron, her father, that ultra-respectable Bavarian diplomatist, had refused to hear her speak of the Jew-demagogue, Lassalle had asked her to send him her portrait, as he wished to build a house adorned with frescoes, and the artist was to seek in her the inspiration of his Brunehild. In the rush of his life, project and photograph had been alike neglected. He had let her go without much effort--in a way he still considered her his, since the opposition had not come from her. But had he been wise to allow this drifting apart? Great political events might be indeed maturing, but oh, how slowly, and there was always that standing danger of her "Moorish Prince"--the young Wallachian student, Janko von Racowitza, the "dragon who guards my treasure," as he had once called him, and who, though betrothed to her, was the slave of her caprices, ready to sacrifice himself if she loved another better, a gentle, pliant creature Lassalle could scarcely understand, especially considering his princely blood. When he at last came upon the photograph, he remembered with a thrill that her birthday was at hand. She would be of age in a day or two, no longer the puppet of her father's will. VI When a little later the Countess Hatzfeldt was announced, he had forgotten he was expecting her. He slipped the photograph back among the papers, and moved forward hurriedly to greet her.