entrance is gained by two high gates, now never opened in hospitality,
and only unlocked at rare intervals for the passage of the quiet
brougham in which the prince or Wanda went and came. The house is
just round the corner of the Kotzebue, and therefore faces the Saski
Gardens--a quiet spot in this most noisy town. The building is a low
one, with a tiled roof and long windows, heavily framed, of which the
smaller panes and thick woodwork suggest the early days of window-glass.
Inside, the house is the house of a poor man. The carpets are worn thin;
the furniture, of a sumptuous design, is carefully patched and mended.
The atmosphere has that mournful scent of better days--now dead and
past. It is the odor of monarchy, slowly fading from the face of a world
that reeks of cheap democracy.

The air of the rooms--the subtle individuality which is impressed by
humanity on wood and texture--suggested that older comfort which has
been succeeded by the restless luxury of these times.

The prince was, it appeared, one of those men who diffuse tranquillity
wherever they are. He had moved quietly through stirring events; had
acted without haste in hurried moments. For the individuality of the
house must have been his. Wanda had found it there when she came back
from the school in Dresden, too young to have a marked individuality
of her own. The difference she brought to the house was a certain
brightness and a sort of experimental femininity, which reigned supreme
until her English governess came back again to live as a companion with
her pupil. Wanda moved the furniture, turned the house round on its
staid basis, and made a hundred experiments in domestic economy before
she gave way to her father's habits of life. Then she made that happiest
of human discoveries, which has the magic power of allaying at one
stroke the eternal feminine discontent which has made the world uneasy