"What address shall I give to the coachman?" he asked, after helping the ladies to ensconce themselves in the vehicle.
"Hôtel Washington."
He had no umbrella; he was wet to the skin, and the day was cold. But that was of no consequence. Otto von Sydow had never felt so warm since he had been in Italy.
That very evening he moved to the Hôtel Washington from the Hôtel de la Paix. Since the entire first floor was occupied by a banker from Vienna, and the hotel was overcrowded, the room assigned him was far from comfortable; but he did not mind that.
And that very evening, before the table-d'hôte dinner, he found his fair one. She was in the reading-room, reading a Paris paper. He also learned who she was,--Princess Dorothea von Ilm.
She was an orphan, and very poor. The family, originally distinguished, had degenerated sadly, principally through the dissipated habits of the Princess's two brothers, notably through the marriage of the elder to a French circus-rider. Since her installation in Castle Egerstein the Princess Dorothea had been homeless, and had been wandering about the world with very little means and a companion who was half instructress, half maid.
This individual, whom Prince Ilm had hurriedly engaged for his sister through a newspaper advertisement, was named Alma Feistmantel, and came from Vienna, where she belonged to those æsthetic circles, the members of which interest themselves chiefly for artists and the drama. For ten years she had cherished a hopeless passion for Sonnenthal: her chief enthusiasms were for broad-shouldered men, Wagner's music, and novels which exalted "the sacred voice of nature."
Under the protection of this lady the Princess Dorothea had for three years been completing her education in Vienna, Rome, and Paris successively.
The Princess enlightened her admirer as to her affairs with the greatest candour, informing him that her brother had treated her shamefully, but that it was all the fault of the circus-rider, who could make him do just as she chose; and in spite of it all Willy was the most fascinating creature imaginable: he looked like a Spaniard. Sydow remembered him: he had served a year in the same regiment with him during his term of compulsory service.
With equal frankness Princess Dorothea explained that she was often embarrassed pecuniarily; once she had been so pinched that she had sold her dog to an Englishman for three hundred francs; she had hated to part with him, for she never had loved any creature as she did that dog, but she needed a ball-dress to wear at an entertainment in Rome at the German embassy. Her aunt, Princess Nimbsch, had chaperoned her when she went into society: sometimes she went, and sometimes she did not; it depended upon her circumstances. In fact, she did not care much about going into society, it prevented you from doing so many amusing things; you could not go to the little theatres, where the funniest farces were played. Therefore she preferred to be in Paris, where not a soul knew her, and she and Feistmantel could go everywhere together.