Ah, he was young again! Songs flowed from his heart. He must not philosophize. Love was eternal. He would not think of his shrunken body, he would not dwell on his wasted strength, new blood flowed in his veins. V. His good fairy came punctually at four. She tripped in like a fairy, indeed, and leaned over him and kissed him on his forehead, while her little hand rested in his. She, too seemed unconscious of the presence of Marguerite in the adjoining room. She removed her wrap with a gesture of determination—as if warding off an intruder—and settled down by his couch, as if she meant to stay with him forever. “Let me look at your sweet Swabian face,” he whispered and raised the lifeless eyelid of his right eye. “You have a face of a Swabian _Gelb-Vögelein_,” he breathed in her ear. He was glad Marguerite had never learned German. He could now speak freely with his Butterfly. And this was only the second time she had been near him! He felt that he had always known her; everything about her seemed strangely familiar to him; he felt as if he had met her in a previous existence and now met her again after a lapse of many years; and while his memory failed him as to her name and the place he had met her, his feelings toward her were those of an old friend. “You haven’t told me yet your right name,” he murmured, seeking her hand, which she readily placed in his. “You elusive Butterfly!” He emitted a soft laugh, “I never stopped thinking of you for a moment since you left. I wondered if you were but a fairy of dreamland and feared that I might wake at any moment and find you had vanished. What is your name, fairy mine?” “Call me Butterfly——” “My Butterfly you shall always be, but what is your real name—who are you? It seems to me I have known you for ages—I am beginning to believe in the transmigration of souls—I feel that I met you before in a different sphere——” Her hand still resting in his she looked at his bloodless face wistfully; she seemed absent minded, as if she had not heard his words, and yet knew what he said.