This remark was met in staring silence. It was a mixing of elements, an unnecessary bringing in of something as unapropos, as unmanageable; that deserved only no words at all. She did not wish to concede the light tone required. Elsa had admitted that Fräulein Vasek was responsible for the statement, “_I_ was the cause of Kreisler’s behaviour,” etc. That was one of those things (there being no evidence to confirm or even suggest it) which at once puts a woman on a peculiar pinnacle of bad taste, incomprehensibleness, and horridness. Bertha’s personal estimation of Kreisler received a complex fillip. This ridiculous version—coming after her version—was a _rival version_, believed in by her friends. Bertha took some minutes to digest Elsa’s news. She flushed. The more she thought of this rival version of Fräulein Vasek’s, the more reprehensible it appeared. It was a startlingly novel and uncompromising version, giving proof of a perfect immodesty. It charged hers full tilt. This _version_ of hers had been the great asset of existence for three days. Some one had coolly set up shop next door, to sell an article in which she, and she alone, had specialized. Here was an unexpected, gratuitous, _new_ inventor of versions coming along. And what a version to begin with! Bertha’s version had been a vital matter, Fräulein Vasek’s evidently was a matter of vanity. The contempt of the workman, sweating for a living, for the amateur, possessed her. But there was a graver aspect to the version of this poaching Venus. In discrediting Bertha’s suggested account of how things happened, it attacked indirectly her action, proceeding, ostensibly, from these notions. Her meeting Kreisler at present depended for its reasonableness and existence even on the “hunger” theory; or, if that should fail, something equally touching and primitive. Were she forced, as Elsa readily did, to accept the snub-by-Anastasya theory, with its tale of ridiculous reprisals, further dealings with Kreisler would show in a bare and ugly light. Her past conduct also would have its primitive slur renewed. Her defiance to Elsa had been delivered with great satisfaction. “I am meeting Herr Kreisler to-morrow!” The shine had soon been taken off that. All Bertha’s past management of the boulevard scene had presupposed that she was working in an element destined to obscurity: malleable, therefore, to any extent. Anastasya had risen up calm, contradictory, a formidable and perplexing enemy, with her cursed _version_. The weak point in it was the rank immodesty of the form it took. Her obstinacy awoke. This new turn coming from the other camp solidified two or three degrees more, in a twinkling, her partisanship of Kreisler. She had a direct interest now in their meeting. She was curious to hear what he had to say as to his alleged attempt in Fräulein Vasek’s direction. “Well, I’m going to Renée’s now, to fetch her for dinner. Are you coming?” Elsa said, getting up.