I.
Masks.
Like flash toward metal, magnet sped to iron,
A Something goes—a Current, mystic, strange—
From man to man, from human breast to breast:
Yet 'tis not Beauty Virtue, Grace, not Truth
That binds nor shall unbind, that magic tie.»
It was about four o'clock that summer afternoon, that I sauntered across a street in the cheerful Hungarian city of Szent-Istvánhely, and turned aimlessly into the café-garden of the Erzsébet-tér, where the usual vehement military-band concert was in progress. I looked about for a free table, at which to drink an iced-coffee, and to mind my own business for an hour or so. Not in a really cross-grained mood was I; but certainly dull, and preoccupied with perplexing affairs left loose in Vienna, and little inclined to observe
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