wife of her admired one. He was nearly forty, but he looked older; gray
hairs tinged his finely modelled head. His face was shaven, and with the
bulging brow and full jaw he was more of the German or Belgian than
French. Black hair thrown off his broad forehead accented this
resemblance; a composer rather than a prose-poet and dramatist, was the
rapid verdict of Ermentrude. She was not disappointed, though she had
expected a more fragile type. The weaver of moonshine, of mystic
phrases, of sweet gestures and veiled sonorities should not have worn
the guise of one who ate three meals a day and slept soundly after his
mellow incantations. Yet she was not--inheriting, as she did, a modicum
of sense from her father--disappointed.

The conversation did not move more briskly with the entrance of the
Kéroulans. The marquis sullenly gossiped with Mr. Sheldam; the princess
withdrew herself to the far end of the room with her two painters.
Rajewski was going to a _soirée_, he informed them, where he would play
before a new picture by Carrière, as it was slowly undraped; no one less
in rank than a duchess would be present! A little stiffly, Ermentrude
Adams assured the Kéroulans of her pleasure in meeting them. The poet
took it as a matter of course, simply, without a suspicion of posed
grandeur. Ermentrude saw this with satisfaction. If he had clay
feet,--and he must have them; all men do,--at least he wore his genius
with a sense of its responsibility. She held tightly her hands and
leaned back, awaiting the precious moment when the oracle would speak,
when this modern magician of art would display his cunning. But he was
fatuously commonplace in his remarks.

"I have often told Madame Kéroulan that my successes in Europe do not
appeal to me as those in far-away America. Dear America--how it must
enjoy a breath of real literature!"