"Now you will be able to visit me, just as I do you. One thing more, however, is necessary. You generally have a fire in your fireplace, and not every woman is a Saint Euphrosyne, able to walk barefoot over glowing coals. Here is a little bottle of liquid with which you can quench the flames at pleasure. It is a chemical mixture expressly prepared for this purpose. And in this other bottle is another liquid for rekindling the fire,—no secret of chemistry, this time, but only naphtha. Let us try it at once, for your room is cold and I have nothing on but this dressing-gown."
The flames were soon crackling merrily again in the fireplace. Blanka, much bewildered and still doubting the evidence of her senses, sank down on a sofa, while her unbidden guest seated herself opposite. The princess raised her eyes involuntarily to the Sappho over the mantelpiece. Again the familiar laugh fell on her ears.
"You look up at the Sappho," said the marchioness. "You have heard her play and sing and laugh more than once, haven't you? Well, you shall learn the secret of it all. A jealous husband once had the passage constructed which connects our two apartments. You know the story of Dionysius's Ear. Here you see it in real life. A hollow tube runs from the opening in the lyre directly to my room, and through this the jealous husband was able to hear every sound in his wife's chamber. Through it, too, you have heard me sing and play and laugh, and I have heard tones of sadness from your room, and exclamations in an unknown tongue, with no cheering word to comfort you and drive away your sorrow. Three days ago, about midnight, you began to sing, and that time I could follow the words,—'De profundis ad te clamavi, Domine.' Don't look so surprised. You are not dreaming all this, and I am really the Marchioness Caldariva, better known as 'the beautiful Cyrene.' I have intruded on you this evening, but to-morrow you will admit me of your own free will, and the day after you shall be my guest. We will signal to each other through the tube when we are alone and disengaged, and we shall soon be great friends."
Blanka started slightly at the bare thought of friendship with this woman.
"I am in love with you already," continued the Marchioness Caldariva. "For the past week we have been meeting every day. We kneel side by side in the same church, for I go to church regularly; but you have not noticed me, because you never raise your eyes from your prayer-book to look at your neighbours' bonnets and gowns. As for me, now, I watch you all the time I am praying. Daily prayers are a necessity with me. In the morning I pray for the sins I have committed the day before, and in the evening for those to be committed on the morrow. Another bond of sympathy between us is the similar lot to which we are both condemned,—a life unblessed by domestic happiness,—and we cherish therefore a common hatred of the world. You, however, show yours by leading a solitary life of mourning, I mine by amusing myself the best way I can. If I were strong enough to follow your example, I should do so, but I can't live without distraction. You are strong; I am weak. I admire in you your power to humble your enemies before you. You were told, weren't you, that I wrote that anonymous letter?"
Blanka looked at the speaker with wide eyes of inquiry and wonder. She began at length to place confidence in her words.
"And you were told the truth, too," continued the other. "Oh, those two men are intriguers of the deepest dye. I was accused of upsetting their plan. I was told how mercilessly you had repulsed one of them. Really, that was a master stroke on your part. The fourteenth paragraph! He himself confessed the secret to me,—how he forged a note, some years ago, in the name of a good friend of his, who now holds the incriminating document in his possession. With it he can at any time crush his false friend and deliver him over to a long imprisonment. The trembling culprit wished to free himself at any cost from this sword of Damocles suspended over his head, and he proposed to me two ways to effect the desired end. One was for me to seduce the young artist and then, as the price of my smiles, cajole him into surrendering the fatal note."
The beautiful Cyrene threw at her listener a look full of the proud consciousness of her own dangerous charms. Blanka drew back in nameless fear under her gaze.
"The other way," proceeded the marchioness, "was to have him assassinated if he refused to give up the forged paper."
Blanka pressed her hands to her bosom to keep from crying out.