"And then----?" the old lady persists.
"I sought no further: the bridge between my sphere in life and that of my princess was destroyed. I quietly returned to Munich. I was very unhappy: the goal to which I had looked forward seemed to have been suddenly snatched from me."
"Oho!" exclaims the old Countess, "you can be sentimental too, then? You are truly many-sided."
"That was years ago. I have changed very much since then."
After which Count Treurenberg contrives to interest the old lady in the latest piece of Venetian gossip.
"You understand now why I did not appear before you, Countess Erika?"
But Erika shook her head: "I do not understand at all. I think you were excessively foolish to avoid me for such a reason."
"Erika is quite right," the grandmother called back over her shoulder in the midst of one of Count Treurenberg's most interesting anecdotes. "Your failing to seek us out only proves that you must have thought us a couple of geese; otherwise you would have been quite sure of a friendly reception."
"No, it proves only that I had been hardly treated by fate, that I was a well-whipped young dog," said Lozoncyi. "Now I have no doubt that I should have been graciously received by both of you; but it would not have amounted to much. You would soon have tired of me. A very young artist is sadly out of place in a drawing-room; I was like all the rest of the race."
"That I find hard to believe," the old Countess said, kindly, still over her shoulder; then, turning again to Count Treurenberg, "Go on, Count. You were saying----"