She never attempted to respond, not against his guttural vowels and hard consonants. Instead she would merely wait, biding her time until she lay down beside him with still more whispered endearments: "I love you, I need you," and the rest of it.

The curtain on her last performance in Vienna came down in mid-January 1907. After briefly passing through Paris again, she and her lieutenent went south to Marseilles, boarding the North German Lloyd steamer Schlesvoig for Alexandria. It was a cold day, a Wednesday with rain. Two competing fanfare orchestras played the "Marseillaise" and "Santa Lucia." Zelle remained in her cabin, dashing off postcards to influential friends, and a short note to Nicholas Gray, revealing virtually nothing.

Egypt was another fantasy, captured with watery snapshots of Zelle posing in the shadow of the pyramids and lounging beneath mosquito netting. Some residents of the European community would later remember her as a blithe spirit astride a camel, moving out across the dunes. She was also seen on occasion in the native quarters, attempting to talk with the women. No one was precisely certain what she wanted.

From Egypt they moved back through Athens to Rome, Zurich, and finally Berlin. There she returned to her studio, working with enthusiasm on a dance she would entitle "The Rose." Kierpert continued to see her, mostly on Mondays and Thursdays. Yet while his gifts grew increasingly extravagant—jewelry, furs, a Faberge egg —these were no longer days of romantic intensity. He merely continued to arrive by carriage in the evening, and to leave on foot at dawn. And if everyone told her that at last she was famous and free, in fact she believed herself trapped, desperately waiting for still another man to take her far far away.

She met him on a Friday, on a white morning in the Tiergarten. He appeared out of the mist in dove-gray flannels and an overcoat. She heard him before she saw him: uneven footsteps on the gravel, the syncopated tap of a walking stick. Then suddenly on the lane ahead—a young British gentleman.

He did not seem to be a particularly striking figure: a stuffed bear of a man with button eyes. His clothing, however, was clearly expensive, and she rather liked his formal walk. There was also the scent of cologne, a scent she had noted before but couldn't quite recall.

He approached casually while she rested her elbows on the railing, looking out across daffodils and hyacinths. She waited until he came up beside her, then spoke softly without really thinking: "I've seen you before, haven't I?"

He nodded, now also resting his elbows on the railing. "Yes, I expect you have."

"Here?"

"Yes."

"Then you've been following me." And she smiled, but only slightly.

"Yes, I suppose I have. Although it's not what it seems."

She smiled again for the enigmatic pose. "They say nothing ever is."