It was not so with Wjera; when doubt had once sown discord between her head and her heart, she fought out the battle unflinchingly, inexorably, in strict honesty, and when the conflict was over her dream had vanished. In this wondrously lovely illusion she had exhausted all the ideality of her nature. Her reason gained the upperhand at last, and ever after she analyzed her fellow-mortals with sharp precision; judging them with harsh justice, and speaking of the affections with an unaffected, contemptuous coolness very rare in a girl so young. Time passed by. She came to be twenty-six years old. She was the eldest and the handsomest of five daughters, and her distaste for marriage increased the difficulty of providing for the other sisters, and excited unpleasant remark among her family circle. Chance introduced Count Lodrin to her acquaintance, and perhaps because he seemed to her a respectable nullity, she selected him for her husband. No one could remember ever having seen so ill-matched a pair. She, aglow with life, delighting in physical exercises, a reckless and indefatigable horsewoman--to whom a steeple-chase was no more than is a waltz to other women,--and he, paying with an attack of illness for every unusual physical effort, not even daring to take a long drive without an extra cushion at his back. Whilst his thoughts moved slowly in a traditional roundabout way, 'her woman's wit flew straight and did exactly hit,' before the Count had cleared his throat for his first 'consequently.' Her quick wit bewildered him; her outspoken acuteness of discernment offended him. There was a world-wide dissimilarity between her views and his. The Count was a strict Catholic; the Countess was inclined to scepticism; although cast in a loftier mould, in her daring mockery and her graceful eccentricity she recalled the fine ladies of the eighteenth century--of that time when social and mental freedom, made fashionable by philosophers, had not yet been degraded to vulgarity by demagogues. His wife's wicked wit shocked poor Count Lodrin. Much ridicule was cast upon the couple, but every one was none the less glad to belong to the brilliant circle which the Countess drew around her, and daily the wonder grew that calumny could not touch the beautiful wife of this dead-and-alive dotard. Three years passed; now and then women hinted innuendoes about Wjera Lodrin, but the other sex continued to speak of her with that mixture of admiration and irritation which bears the truest testimony to the blamelessness of a very beautiful woman. At last society was content to shrug its shoulders and to repeat, 'She is a riddle.' The Countess was unutterably bored. The only occupation that she pursued with inexhaustible interest, though at the same time with reckless intrepidity, was riding.