'Certainly, a charming person. And our cousin Kaulnitz knows him well. Wanda for once talks foolishly. Gambling is, it is true, a great sin at all times, but I do not know that it is worse at public tables than it is in your clubs. I myself am, of course, ignorant of these matters; but I have heard that privately, at cards, whole fortunes have been lost in a night, scribbled away with a pencil on a scrap of paper.'
'To lose a fortune is better than to win one,' said her niece, as she rose from the head of her table.
When the Princess slept in her blue-room Egon Vàsàrhely approached his cousin, where she sat at her embroidery frame.
'This stranger has the power to make you angry,' he said sadly. 'I have not even that.'
'Dear Egon,' she said tenderly, 'you have done nothing in your life that I could despise. Why should you be discontented at that?'
'Would you care if I did?'
'Certainly; I should be very sorry if my noble cousin did anything that could belie his chivalry; but why should we suppose impossibilities?'
'Suppose we were not cousins, would you love me then?'
'How can I tell? This is mere non-sense——'
'No; it is all my life. You know, Wanda, that I have loved you, only you, ever since I saw you as I came back from France—a child, but such a beautiful child, with your hair braided with pearls, and a dress all stiff with gold, and your lap full of red roses.'