Anne retired, but came back again immediately. "He sent to ask," she said, in a tone of studied indifference, which ineffectually concealed her inward satisfaction, "what he had done to deserve madame's displeasure, and why he should be treated like a stranger?" "Anne," cried Pilar, her voice quivering with rage, "how dare you bring me such a message! If the man does not go instantly, then order Don Pablo and Auguste to see that he does." The maid withdrew, and Pilar, without waiting for Wilhelm's question, muttered resentfully: "A man I was kind to out of pity, because he was such a poor wretch, an unknown poet, and bound to die soon--and now he is impudent and intrusive. But that is just what one may expect when one is kind-hearted." Wilhelm thought no more of this episode, and had almost forgotten that it had ever occurred, when one day soon afterward a friend of Pilar's, the Countess Cuerbo, came to call. She was the wife of a fabulously rich Spanish banker, whose house, racing-stables, picture gallery, carriages, and dinners were among the marvels of Paris. This lady's most striking characteristic was a vulgar boastfulness, such as is seldom met with even among the worst upstarts of the Bourse. It was said that she had originally been a washerwoman or a cigarette maker in Seville, but this was perhaps an exaggeration. So much, however, was certain, that her husband had begun in a very small way, and had received his title at the accession of King Alfonso, in return for financial services which had materially helped toward the re-establishment of the throne. The Countess Cuerbo could now give points as to pride of station to the bluest-blooded grandee. She associated exclusively with persons of title, and strove, in every possible way, to play the "grande dame." She was always bedizened with the most costly diamonds, and so shamelessly rouged that she must have been mobbed had she gone through the Boulevards on foot. She was not actually plain, but so affected that she did not know what to do with herself, and made such frightful grimaces that one was afraid to look at her. Nor could she be called stupid, for she had the inborn natural wit of the Andalusians, and when she spoke Spanish, could give very droll turns to her remarks. Her French was calculated to induce toothache in her hearers, and in the unfamiliar language the wit evaporated and left only the vulgar behind. She was the terror of her female friends, for she considered absolute freedom of speech to be the privilege and badge of nobility, and thought herself every inch an aristocrat when she alluded, without the faintest regard for decency, not only to her own numerous affairs of gallantry, but to those of her friends to their faces. Her tactlessness had been the cause of many a disaster, but she remained incorrigible, in spite of repeated and severe snubbings and even bitter insults.