"Prince, I pity you for what you have just said," replied the countess, rising. Her face wore the same cold, lifeless expression as on the day of her arrival.
"But, my dearest friend, for Heavens's sake tell me, did you and I come from any other motive than curiosity?"
"You, no! I, yes!"
"Don't say that, chère amie. You, the scholar, superior to us all in learning; you, the disciple of Schopenhauer, the proud philosopher, the believer in Nirvâna."
"Yes, I, Prince!" cried the countess, "The philosopher who was not happy for an hour, not content for a moment. What is this Nirvâna? A stone idol, which the fruitless speculation of our times has conjured from the rubbish of archæological excavations, and which stares at us with its vacant eyes until we fall into an intellectual hypnotism which we mistake for peace." An expression of bitter sarcasm rested on her lips. "I came here to bring pessimism and Christianity face to face. I thought it would be very novel to see the stone idol Nirvâna, with his hands on his lap and the silence of eternal death on his lips, watch the martyr, dripping with sweat and blood, bear His own cross to the place of execution and cheerfully take up the work where Buddha faltered; on the boundary of non-existence. I wanted to see how the two would treat each other, if for nothing more than a comparative study of religion."
"You are irresistible in your charming mockery, dearest Countess, yet logically I cannot confess myself conquered!" replied the prince. The countess smiled: "Of course, when did a man ever acknowledge that to a woman, where intellectual matters were concerned? A sunny curl, the seductive arch of an upper lip, a pair of blue eyes sparkling with tears will make you lords of creation the dupes of the most ordinary coquette or even the yielding toy of the dullest ignorance. We women all know it! But, if we assail your dry logic, you are as unconquerable as Antæus so long as he stood upon the earth! You, too, could only be vanquished by whoever had the power to lift you from the ground where you stand."
"You might have that power, Countess. Not by your arguments, but by your eyes. You know that one loving glance would not only lift me from the earth but into heaven, and then you could do with me what you would."
"You have forfeited the loving glance! Perhaps it might have rewarded your assent, but it would never purchase it, I scorn bribed judges, for I am sure of my cause!"
"Countess, pardon my frankness: it is a pity that you have so much intellect."
"Why?"