"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."
"Because it leads you into sophistical by-ways; your tendency to mysticism gives an apparently logical foundation and thereby strengthens you the more in this dangerous course. A more simple, temperate judgment would _guard_ you from it."
"Well, Prince--" she looked at him pityingly, contemptuously--"may Heaven preserve me from _such_ a judgment as well as from all who may seek to supply its place to me. Excuse me for this evening. I should like to devote an hour to these worthy people and soothe my nerves--I have been too much excited by the scenes we have witnessed. Goodnight, Prince!"
Prince Emil turned pale. "Good-night, Countess. Perhaps to-morrow you will be somewhat more humane in this cat and mouse game; to-day I am sent home with a bleeding wound." With lips firmly compressed, he bowed his farewell and left the garden. Madeleine looked after him: "He is angry. I cannot help him, he deserved it. Oh, foolish man, who deemed yourself so clever! Do you suppose this glowing heart desires no other revelations than those of pure reason? Do you imagine that the arguments of all the philosophical systems of humanity could offer it that for which it longs? Shall I find it? Heaven knows! But one thing is certain, I shall no longer seek it in _you_."