“Ach!  I wish I had been the Fornarina,” sighed the impassioned, romantic lady.

“Then, my dear Madam,” replied the Baron, “I wish I had been Raphael.”

And so likewise said to himself a very tall man with fiery red hair, and fancy whiskers, who was waltzing round and round in one spot, and in a most extraordinary waistcoat; thus representing a fiery, floating-light, to warn men of the hidden rocks, on which the breath of vanity drives them shipwreck.  At length, his partner, tired of spinning, sank upon a sofa, like a child’s top, when it reels and falls.

“You do not like the waltz?” said an elderly French gentleman, remarking the expression of Flemming’s countenance.

“O yes; among the figurantes of the Opera.  But I confess, it sometimes makes me shudder to see a young rake clasp his arms round the waist of a pure and innocent girl.  What would you say, were you to see him sitting on a sofa with his arms round your wife?”

“Mere prejudice of education,” replied the French gentleman.  “I know that situation.  I have read all about it in the Bibliotheque de Romans Choisis!”

And merrily went the dance; and bright eyes and flushed cheeks were not wanting among the dancers;

“And they waxed red, and waxed warm,

And rested, panting, arm in arm,”

and the Strauss-walzes sounded pleasantly in the ears of Flemming, who, though he never danced, yet, like Henry of Ofterdingen, in the Romance of Novalis, thought to music.  The wheeling waltz set the wheels of his fancy going.  And thus the moments glided on, and the footsteps of Time were not heard amid the sound of music and voices.

But suddenly this scene of gayety was interrupted.  The door opened wide; and the short figure of a gray-haired old man presented itself, with a flushed countenance and wild eyes.  He was but half-dressed, and in his hand held a silver candlestick without a light.  A sheet was wound round his head, like a turban; and he tottered forward with a vacant, bewildered look, exclaiming;

“I am Mahomet, the king of the Jews!”

At the same moment he fell in a swoon; and was borne out of the room by the servants.  Flemming looked at the lady of the festival, and she was deadly pale.  For a moment all was confusion; and the dance and the music stopped.  Theimpression produced on the company was at once ludicrous and awful.  They tried in vain to rally.  The whole society was like a dead body, from which the spirit has departed.  Ere long the guests had all dispersed, and left the lady of the mansion to her mournful, expiring lamps, and still more mournful reflections.

“Truly,” said Flemming, to the Baron, as they wended their way homeward, “this seems not like reality; but like one of the sharp contrasts we find in novels.  Who shall say, after this, that there is not more romance in real life, than we find written in books!”

“Not more romance,” said the Baron, “but a different romance.”