"
"Always the same song!" Linden impatiently exclaimed. "Must I renounce
love?"
"Yes," replied Thiel firmly.
"I must voluntarily renounce happiness?"
"In your case love is not always synonymous with happiness," said Thiel
with a significant smile.
"You are particularly agreeable to-day," remarked Linden sullenly.
"I owe you the truth. It is a professional and, at the same time, a
friendly duty," said Thiel, rising to go. Linden parted from him with a
silent clasp of the hand.
"Renounce love! No. That he really could not do. Love was the sole
purpose of his life which, without it, would seem as cold and gloomy as a
grave."
He was a chosen vessel of pleasure, and apparently destined by nature to
be borne through life in women's arms, handsome, captivating, a flash of
passion in his tender eyes, his lips yearning for kisses, regarded by the
men with wrath and envy, by the women with glowing cheeks and bewildered
hearts. When barely a youth, a page of the Grand Duchess, his attractive
person and winning grace turned the heads of all the ladies of the court,
and it was rumoured that a princess had been his first teacher in the
arts of love and, even after decades had passed, still grieved over their
memory.
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