AN INTERESTING PARALLEL.
259
While things stood thus I received a letter from Varvilliers (who was at Forstadt) accepting my invitation to Artenberg. His acceptance signified, he went on:
"Of course all the town is full of you and your fiancée—her portrait is everywhere, your name and hers in every mouth. There is another coupled with them, surely in a strange conjunction! When they speak of you and the Princess they speak of Wetter also. It is recalled that you and he were friends and associates, companions in amusement and sport (especially, of course, in pistol practice!). Hence springs a theory that the fellow's odd rhapsody (mad and splendid!) was directly inspired by yourself, that you chose him as your medium, desiring to add to the formal expressions usual on such occasions an unofficial declaration of your private feelings. So you are hailed as a model and most romantic lover, and every tea-table resounds with your praises. Early indiscretions (forgive a pen itself indiscreet) are forgotten, and you are booked for the part of the model husband, an example of the beauty (and the duty) of marriages of inclination in high places. Believe me, your popularity is doubled. And the strange fellow himself, having money in his pocket and that voice of his in magnificent order, is to be seen everywhere, smiling mysteriously and observing a most significant reticence when he is pressed to say that he spoke at your request and to your pattern. But for your Majesty's own letters I should not have ventured to be a dissenter from the received opinion; if you bid me, at any moment I will gladly renounce my heresy and embrace the orthodox faith. Meanwhile I am wondering what imp holds sway in Wetter's brain;
