for me to return home without any one guessing that anything unusual had happened to me, and without feeling as though I should sink into the earth with shame? No, no, impossible. It cannot be a lady who visits our neighbour. It is a despicable creature, a woman of the lowest kind. But in that case, why should she be so afraid of being seen? Why should she arrive so carefully veiled? A woman of the demi-monde would not need to hide herself. Besides—I don't quite know, but there is something unmistakably refined and shrinking in her manner, something so mysterious and sweetly-criminal about her, when, after considering a moment, she quickly opens the street door. She must be a lady. Perhaps even a very distinguished lady.
And so my imagination runs off with me. She is a distinguished lady visiting her lover. Who is he? Why has he hidden himself away in this quiet suburban road. At the last reception at Court, when many foreign princes gathered in the king's palace, they met. He a foreign prince, and she a Danish nobleman's lovely daughter. The young prince became so infatuated with the girl, that he could not forget her, and while pretending to be travelling in the Far East, he returned to the North. Helped by his silent and faithful servant, he rented this out-of-the-way corner, and sent secretly this message to his beloved, 'I am here and await you.'
They are together in there, where it is cosy and full of warmth and perfume. The fire crackles in the
