He was to learn later on that this amiable, frank, unfailingly good-tempered acquaintance had made the most ill-natured, not to say defamatory remarks about him, before Pilar and her whole circle of friends.
One afternoon Anne announced that "the consumptive poet was below, and begged to be allowed to pay his respects to Madame la Comtesse." "Another great man, no doubt," thought Wilhelm, sadly resigned to his fate.

To his surprise Pilar turned furiously red, and said angrily: "I am not at home!" Anne retired, but came back again immediately.
"He sent to ask," she said, in a tone of studied indifference, which ineffectually concealed her inward satisfaction, "what he had done to deserve madame's displeasure, and why he should be treated like a stranger ?" "Anne," cried Pilar, her voice quivering with rage, "how dare you bring me such a message! If the man does not go instantly, then order Don Pablo and Auguste to see that he does." The maid withdrew, and Pilar, without waiting for Wilhelm's question, muttered resentfully: "A man I was kind to out of pity, because he was such a poor wretch, an unknown poet, and bound to die soon--and now he is impudent and intrusive.

But that is just what one may expect when one is kind-hearted." Wilhelm thought no more of this episode, and had almost forgotten that it had ever occurred, when one day soon afterward a friend of Pilar's, the Countess Cuerbo, came to call.

She was the wife of a fabulously rich Spanish banker, whose house, racing-stables, picture gallery, carriages, and dinners were among the marvels of Paris.

This lady's most striking characteristic was a vulgar boastfulness, such as is seldom met with even among the worst upstarts of the Bourse.