In a struggle between duty and passion, she expected passion to overcome, and she concurred beforehand with this troubadour who protested that the gentler sex really held the under one in its dependence.

Radiant with pleasure and farther delighted to recognize a well-known face on the minstrel’s shoulders, she hastened at the conclusion to give him her compliments.  It was the young nobleman who had aided her flight with Clemenceau at Munich, and of whom she had not cherished a second thought!  Better than all, while titled a baron in Germany, he held a viscount’s rank in France, and his aunt, the marchioness, presented him as the last of the Terremondes.

She had not expected to meet in this coterie a gentleman who patronized the singers of a beer-hall, but the frock does not make the monk, and Baron Gratian von Linden-Hohen-Linden, Viscount de Terremonde in France, was of another species than the frequenters of Latour chateau.

From his income in both countries, he had the means to maintain what would have been ruinous establishments; he had the racing stud which no English peer would be ashamed of, a gallery of masterpieces acquired from living painters, an unrivaled hot-house of orchids, wolf-hounds and fox-hounds and other dogs, and the rumor went that the famous Caroline Birchoffstein, in consideration of his being a fellow-countryman, was more often seen in his box at the Grand Opera House than in her own.

The imperial court, also, not averse to being on good terms with South Germany, since Prussia was supposed to be France’s greatest opponent in case Luxembourg were clutched, petted the Franco-Teuton, and regretted that he was so pleasure-loving.

To continue her thraldom over him, Cesarine left not a word unsaid or a glance undelivered.  In this attack, she was met halfway, for, had she been less eager, she must have seen that the viscount-baron’s joy at seeing her again was sincere.

“You hesitate to ask what happened after your fortunate escape with that young student,” he said, when they were allowed a few minutes together by the artful management of the hostess.  “I can tell you that I had to pass through a fiery ordeal and I hope you preserved a kindly memory of one who suffered tremendously for you.  Major Von Sendlingen was not an undetached person whose quarrel could be kept among private ones.  On the contrary, he moved the authorities like a chess-player does the pieces, and he moved them against me.  At the first, they talked of nothing less than trying me for treason, since the projected arrest of the Polish conspirator and yourself—­kinswoman of the Dobronowska inscribed in the black book of the Russian and Polish police—­was foiled on my territory.  The major affirmed that he had seen me not only looking on at the defeat of his posse, but holding my farmers in check not to hasten to their assistance.  He alleged that I had lent racehorses to you and your accomplice, for your continued flight.  This Polander—­”