“Shall I tell you of my adventures after I left Weimar?” she said.
The waiter had deposited two high-stemmed glasses filled with a pale liquid before them.
“I am most anxious to hear everything,” he said; “but first let us drink to good luck.”
He raised his glass and watched her take a dainty sip of the apéritif and then with a puzzled expression replace the glass on the table.
“Your very good health, Comtesse Helène,” he said, “and may we always be good friends,” and emptied his glass.
The orchestra had struck up a new piece. She listened intently for a moment to the first few bars, and then her face lightened and the tears came to her eyes.
“Do you hear, Mr. Morton, do you remember, it’s ‘The Blue Danube.’”
“Yes, I remember well. We heard it at the Bristol in Vienna on the day I left for home,” he whispered back hastily, overcome with the emotion born of the recollection. The next moment, however, he was the courtly host again. It was the present, not the past, that concerned him just now.
“And now, Miss Helène, may I hear your story?”
At first hesitatingly, then somewhat more fluently and occasionally with a rush of words, she began and continued the story we know. When she came to the incident with the Frau Professor in Hanover, she scarcely knew how to relate it without conveying a false impression about herself to Morton. But he realized the situation without her assistance.