figure copied in immortal marble, and her charms sung by French bards.  At all events, she bewitched the old Count von Raackensee, who took her on a tour through our country and Austria.  It was at Vienna that he, an old statesman and courtier, committed the folly of presenting her as his daughter!  The truth came out—­Austria and Prussia made remonstrances, and he was compelled to resign his office or this witch.  He would not give her up and so he was punished.”

“Punished?”

“Yes; he went on to live at Nice, where he had bought a villa in foresight for some such day of disgrace.  The Circe was to follow him, but, instead of that, she has shaken off the golden links and condescends to stay a week in Munich to amuse us coarse swiggers of beer.”

CHAPTER IV.

THE STAR IS DEAD LONG LIVE THE STAR!

By listening to others and observing them, man obtains the material for self-preservation.  Evidently this star of the minor stage was a woman to be avoided; a rising light which might scar the sight and burn the fingers of too venturesome an admirer.  Claudius had a premonition that he ought to go out and kill the few minutes in strolling the streets, before keeping the appointment, even at the risk of being questioned by the police.  But he overcame the impulsion, and waited to face what might be a danger the more.

All the hall, by instinct and from the stories circulating—­perhaps circulated by the agents of the management—­divined that no common attraction was to be presented.  Besides, to displace La Belle Stamboulane worthily on the stage, that chosen arena where the female gladiator carries the day, a miracle of beauty, wit and skill was requisite.  Elsewhere, ability, practice, art, artifice, many gifts and accomplishments may triumph, but the fifth element as indispensable as the others, air, water, fire and earth—­it is love, which legitimately monopolizes the theatre for its exhibition and glorification.  Men and women come to such places of amusement to hear love songs, see love scenes, and share in the fictitious joys and sorrows of love, which they long to enact in reality.  Nothing is above love; nothing equals it.  He reigns as a master in a temple, with woman as the high-priestess, and man the victim or the chosen reward.

Preceding the novelty, a bass-singer roared a drinking-song, in which he likened human life to a brewer’s house, in which some quenched their thirst quickly and departed; others stayed to quaff, jest, tell stories to cronies, before staggering out “full;” the oldest went to sleep there.  Though rich-voiced and liked, this time he retired in silence, for the audience was tormented with impatience.

The orchestra struck up a fashionable waltz, and, as the door, at the back of a drawing-room scene, was opened in both flaps by the liveried servants, a young lady entered, so fresh, delightful and easy that for a moment it seemed as if it were a member of the “highest life” who had blundered off the street into this strange world.