effective toilette. At a few minutes before the time for luncheon, she walked down the corridor and recognized Von Behrling, who was sitting with his companions in one of the compartments.
"Ah, it is indeed you, then!" she exclaimed, smiling at him.
He rose to his feet and came out. Tall, with a fair moustache and blue eyes, he was often taken for an Englishman and was inclined to be proud of the fact.
"You have rested well, I trust, Mademoiselle?" he asked, bowing low over her fingers.
"Excellently," replied Louise. "Will you not take me in to luncheon? The car is full of men and I am not comfortable alone. It is not pleasant, either, to eat with one's maids."
"I am honored," he declared. "Will you permit me for one moment?"
He turned and spoke to his companions. Louise saw at once that they were protesting vigorously. She saw, too, that Von Behrling only became more obstinate and that he was very nearly angry. She moved a few steps on down the corridor, and stood looking out of the window. He joined her almost immediately.
"Come," he said, "they will be serving luncheon in five minutes. We will go and take a good place."
"Your friends, I am afraid," she remarked, "did not like your leaving them. They are not very gallant."
"To me it is indifferent," he answered, fiercely twirling his moustache. "Streuss there is an old fool. He has always some fancy in his brain."
Louise raised her eyebrows slightly.
"You are your own master, I suppose," she said. "The Baron is used to command his policemen, and sometimes he forgets. There are many people who find him too autocratic."
"He means well," Von Behrling asserted. "It is his manner only which is against him."
They found a comfortable table, and she sat smiling at him across the white cloth.
"If this is not Sachers," she said, "it is at least more pleasant than lunching alone."
"I can assure you, Mademoiselle," he declared, with a vigorous twirl of his moustache, "that I find it so."
"Always gallant," she murmured. "Tell me, is it true of you—the news which I heard just before I left Vienna? Have you really resigned your post with the Chancellor?"
"You heard that?" he asked slowly.
She hesitated for a moment.
"I heard something of the sort," she admitted. "To be quite candid with you, I think it was reported that the Chancellor was making a change on his own account."
"So that is what they say, is it? What do they know about it—these gossipers?"
"You were not allowed at the conference yesterday," she remarked.
"No one was allowed there, so that goes for nothing."
"Ah! well," she said, looking meditatively out upon the landscape, "a year ago the thought of that conference would have driven me wild. I should not have been content until I had learned somehow or other what had transpired. Lately, I am afraid, my interest in my country seems to have grown a trifle cold. Perhaps because I have lived in Vienna I have learned to look at things from your point of view. Then, too, the world is a selfish place, and our own little careers are, after all, the most important part of it."
Von Behrling eyed her Curiously.
"It seems strange to hear you talk like this," he remarked.
She looked out of the window for a moment.
"Oh! I still love my country, in a way," she answered, "and I still hate all Austrians, in a way, but it is not as it used to be with me, I must admit. If we had two lives, I would give one to my country and keep one for myself. Since we have only one, I am afraid, after all, that I am human, and I want to taste some of its pleasures."
"Some of its pleasures," Von Behrling repeated, a little gloomily. "Ah, that is easy enough for you, Mademoiselle!"
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