'What for?'
'You have already mounted very high, but be careful, for non si va sano. You must lean on the arm of a woman, who often raises a man as though he had wings.'
Brühl sighed.
'I know for whom you sigh,' she continued, 'and what there is in your heart. But you must forget the ungrateful queen and look for another.'
'To search, in order to be repulsed and despised!'
'Only the one who is unworthy of you could despise you, and such a woman is not to be regretted.'
She bent close to his ear, and having whispered something in it, disappeared in the crowd. He passed on. Opposite him was Frances Kolowrath's table, surrounded by young men. The girl laughing, her parted lips showing her teeth, handed the glasses of wine. He looked at her from a distance. She was tempting and graceful, but her cool coquettishness frightened him. He stood for a long while deep in thought, and then turned aside.
Hardly had he sat down on a chair, in order to rest for he was tired, when the bandit sat beside him.
'Not long ago,' said he, 'you were flirting with a queen, and now you are thinking of that young girl. Am I not right?'
Brühl shook his head without answering.