“That is nothing. You wait,” and Cæsar squeezed the Countess’s hand until he made her give a sharp scream. A servant entered the salon. “It’s nothing,” said the Countess, getting up; “I seemed to have turned my foot.”
“I will take you to your room,” exclaimed Cæsar, offering her his arm.
“No, no. Thanks very much.”
“Yes. It has to be.”
“Then, all right,” she murmured, and added, “Now you frighten me.”
“Bah, you will get over that!” and Cæsar went into her room with her....
The next day Cæsar appeared in the salon looking as if he had been buried and dug up.
“What is the matter?” Mme. Dawson and her daughters asked him.
“Nothing; only I had a headache and I took a big dose of antipyrine.”
The relations of the Brenda lady and Cæsar soon cooled. Their temperaments were incompatible: there was no harmony between their imaginations or between their skins. In reality, the Countess, with all her romanticism, did not care for long and compromising liaisons, but for hotel adventures, which leave neither vivid memories nor deep imprints. Cæsar noted that despite her lyricism and her sentimental talk, there was a great deal of firmness in this plump woman, and a lack of sensitiveness.