The door behind her into the anteroom was opened. Only intimate friends at small entertainments ever entered through this apartment--her room. The new-comer must be either Ottomar or the Count. She had heard nothing, and as the steps came nearer over the thick carpet, let her fingers wander dreamily over the keys, "Already sends the Graal to seek the loiterer----" "Fräulein von Wallbach!" "Ah! my dear Count," said Carla, looking up a little, and giving the Count her left hand over her shoulder, whilst the right played "My trusty Swan." "Will you not go first and say 'how do you do' to Louisa? She is in the drawing-room with Frau von Arnfeld." The Count lifted the carelessly-given hand to his lips, "And then?" he asked. "You can return here--I have something to say to you." The Count came back in half a minute. "Draw that chair here--not so near--there--and don't let my strumming disturb you. Do you know, my dear Count, that you are a very dangerous man!" "My dear Fräulein von Wallbach!" cried the Count, as he twirled his moustaches. "You must be so, when even Louisa already thinks so. She has just preached me the most charming sermon." "But what have I done? All the world worships you; why should I not dare what all the world may do?" "Because you are not all the world." "Because----" Carla lifted her eyes; the Count was always bewitched when he could look into those blue eyes, unhindered by glasses, under whose weary, drooping eyelids a secret world of tenderness and archness seemed to him to be concealed. "Because I have come too late," he whispered passionately. "A man should not be too late, my dear Count; it is the worst of faults in war, in politics, in everything. You must bear the consequence of this fault--_voilà tout_." She played: "Only one year beside thee, As witness of thy bliss, I asked." The Count gazed before him in silence. "He takes it for earnest," thought Carla. "I must rouse him up again a little." "Why should we not be friends?" she said, reaching out her right hand to him, whilst the left played: "Return to me! and let me teach How sweet the bliss of purest truth." "Certainly, certainly!" cried the Count, imprinting a long, burning kiss on the offered hand; "why should we not be friends?" "Friendship between pure souls is so sweet, is it not so? But the world is not pure. It loves to blacken all bright things. It requires a security. Give it the best possible under the circumstances. Marry!" "And that is your advice to me?" "Mine more especially. I shall gain immensely by it; I shall not quite lose you. More, I cannot--more, I do not expect." And Carla played, with both hands: "Let me convert thee to the faith, One bliss there is, without remorse." "Good God, Carla--my dear Fräulein von Wallbach! do you know that something similar--almost in the same words----"