“A Russian who paints extraordinary sea pieces.”

“What!  Only water—­without shore, or people, or ships?”

“I remember a picture with absolutely nothing but water, only a spar, or a mast floating on it.”

“There, you see!” she cried in triumph.  “That broken mast is a trick of the artist.  There lies the story.  You instantly think of a wrecked ship; you see men, catastrophes, weeping widows and sweethearts; the spar becomes the central point of the picture, and you forget all about the sea.  Moreover, the ancients, who surely had an eye for all that is grand and beautiful, they did not know either what to do with the sea.  They were a magnificent race, healthy-minded realists—­and kept strictly to the evidences of their senses without adding anything transcendental.  The sea only appealed to their ear.  Homer’s adjectives for the sea are only expressive of sound—­the resounding, the jubilant, the loud-rushing; hardly more than once does he allude to the gloomy or the wine-colored sea.”

“You have your classics at your fingers’ ends, like any philologist.”

“That need not surprise you.  With regard to the really beautiful, I have neither pride nor prejudice.  Even the fact that the common herd of the reading public has made a point of praising him for a hundred years does not prevent me from enjoying a true poet.”

“But if you dislike the sea so much why do you come here?”

“Oh,” laughed the handsome lady, “that is the fault of my doctors.  They sent me to the sea to thin me down, and by their orders I was to choose a very dull, very remote bathing place, where I should be sure not to meet any acquaintances.  For directly I have friends about me, I enjoy myself, laugh, talk, and then I get stout again.  Now to-day, for instance, I have acted contrary to my medical orders—­I have had a very pleasant chat with you.”

“You are too kind.  You have given everything and received nothing in return.”

“That is exactly what I like—­always to give, never to receive.”

“That is not woman’s way usually.  But you are very exceptional.  Pardon a possibly indiscreet question—­do you write?”

“Good gracious!  Do I look like a blue-stocking?”

“I never made a distinct picture of that type.”

“You need not be afraid, I am not an authoress.  The most I have ever done in that way was to give a novelist, or a comedy-writer of my acquaintance, a little help now and then.  When they want a lady’s letter, they like me to write it.  But you—­I suppose you are an author?”

“No, madame; I study natural science.”

“A professor then?”

“No, only an amateur.”

“Ah!  And you are French?”

“I am German.”

“Impossible!” exclaimed the lady.

“Why impossible?” asked Wilhelm, smiling.

“You have no accent, and you look—­”

“You probably think that every German has light blue eyes, flaxen hair, and a long pipe?”