"Take this immediately to Madame Balzer in the Ringstrasse. Give it into her own hands," said he to the servant.
Then he stretched out his arms with a deep-drawn breath, and threw himself into an arm chair.
"The meteor has vanished for ever!" he cried; "now shine kindly upon me, thou pure, fair star, whose clear light smiles so peacefully."
His eyes closed; Nature claimed her rights after the wakeful night and the excitement of the morning.
Late in the afternoon of the same day, some of the guests whom we met formerly at Countess Mensdorff's, were assembled in a large and elegant drawing-room of a beautiful old house in the Herrengasse, in Vienna.
The small fire burning in the marble fire-place cast glowing reflections on the polished parquet floor. A hanging lustre, with three branches, shed an agreeable light over the room, and here and there sparkled upon the gold frames on the walls containing the family portraits. Opposite the fire-place stood a large table, upon which was a beautiful bronze lamp with a large blue glass shade, and the high-backed chairs and sofas were covered with dark blue silk.
The mistress of the house, Countess Frankenstein, sat on a sofa near the table. She was an elderly lady of that type of the Austrian aristocracy which so strongly recalls the old French noblesse of the ancien régime, but possesses also the Austrian kindliness and Austrian national feeling, a combination which makes the higher circles of society in Vienna so peculiarly attractive.
The lady's partially grey hair was carefully arranged; a high dress of rich dark silk fell around her in heavy folds, and beautifully-set old diamonds gleamed in her brooch, her ear-rings and bracelet.
Beside her sat the Countess Clam Gallas.
On a low chair at her mother's side sat the young countess, in a beautiful toilette, which showed she was going out later in the evening.