ONE DAY

A SEQUEL TO "THREE WEEKS"

ANONYMOUS

Original Publication Date 1909, by The Macaulay Company

NEW YORK THE MACAULAY COMPANY 1912

THE SCHILLING PRESS NEW YORK

FOREWORD TO MY AMERICAN FRIENDS

Now after spending some very pleasant weeks in your interesting country, I feel sure that this book will find many sympathetic readers inAmerica. Quite naturally it will be discussed; some, doubtless, willcensure it--and unjustly; others will believe with me that the taleteaches a great moral lesson. 

Born as the Boy was born, the end which Fate forced upon him, to me, wasinevitable. Each word and act of the three weeks of his parents'love-idyl must reflect in the character and life of the child. Little bylittle the baby King grew before my mental vision until I saw at lastthere was no escape from his importunity and I allowed the insistentBoy--masterful even from his inception--to shape himself at his ownsweet will. Thus he became the hero of my study. 

This is not a book for children or fools--but for men and women who cangrasp the underlying principle of morality which has been uppermost inmy mind as I wrote. Those who can see beyond the outburst ofpassion--the overmastering belief in the power of love to justify allthings, which the Boy inherited so naturally from his Queen mother--willunderstand the forces against which the young Prince must needs fight alosing battle. The transgression was unavoidable to one whose veryconception was beyond the law--the punishment was equally inevitable. 

In fairness to this book of mine--and to me--the great moral lesson Ihave endeavored to teach must be considered in its entirety, and nosingle episode be construed as the book's sole aim. The verdict on mytwo years' work rests with you, dear Reader, but at least you may besure that I have only tried to show that those who sow the wind shallreap the whirlwind. 

--THE AUTHOR. 

ONE DAY

CHAPTER I

The Prince tore the missive fiercely from its envelope, and scowled atthe mocking glint of the royal crown so heavily embossed at the top ofthe paper. What a toy it was, he thought, to cost so much, andeventually to mean so little! Roughly translated, the letter ran asfollows:

"Your Royal Highness will be gratified to learn that at last asatisfactory alliance has been arranged between the Princess Elodie ofAustria and your royal self. It is the desire of both courts andcouncils that the marriage shall be solemnized on the fifteenth of theMay following your twenty-first birthday, at which time the coronationceremony takes place that is to place the crown of the kingdom upon thehead of the son of our beloved and ever-to-be-regretted Imperatorskoye. The Court and Council extend greetings and congratulations upon the notfar distant approach of both auspicious events to your Royal Highness, which cannot fail to afford the utmost satisfaction in every detail tothe ever-beautiful-and-never-to-be-sufficiently beloved Prince Paul. 

"Imperator-to-be, we salute thee. We kiss thy feet. "

The letter was sealed with the royal crest and signed by the Regent--theBoy's uncle--the Grand Duke Peter, his mother's brother, who had beenhis guardian and protector almost from his birth. The young prince knewthat his uncle loved him, knew that the Grand Duke desired nothing onearth so much as the happiness of his beloved sister's only son--and yetat this crisis of the Boy's life, even his uncle was as powerless tohelp as was Paul Verdayne, the Englishman. 

"The Princess Elodie!" he grumbled. "Who the devil is this PrincessElodie, anyway? Austrian blood has no particular charm for me! Theymight at least have told me something a little more definite about thewoman they have picked out to be the mother of my children. A manusually likes to look an animal over before he purchases!"

Known to London society as Monsieur Zalenska, the Prince had come up totown with the Verdaynes, and was apparently enjoying to the utmost thefrivolities of London life. 

At a fashionable garden party he sat alone, in a seclusion he had longsought and had finally managed to secure, behind a hedge of hawthornwhere none but lovers, and men and women troubled as he was troubled, cared to conceal themselves. 

The letter, long-expected and dreaded, had finally crossed the continentto his hand. It was only the written confirmation of the sentence Fatehad pronounced upon him, even as it had pronounced similar sentencesupon princes and potentates since the beginning of thrones and kingdoms. 

While the Prince--or Paul Zalenska, as I will now call him--sat in hisbrooding brown study, clutching the imperial letter tightly in his younghand, his attention was arrested by the sound of voices on the otherside of the hawthorn hedge. 

He listened idly, at first, to what seemed to be a one-sidedconversation, in a dull, emotionless feminine voice--a discourse onfashion, society chit-chat, and hopeless nonentities, interspersed withbits of gossip. Could women never talk about anything else? he thoughtimpatiently. 

But his displeasure did not seem to affect the course of things at all. The voice, completely unconscious of the aversion it aroused in theinvisible listener, continued its dreary, expressionless monotone. 

"What makes you so silent, Opal? You haven't said a word to-day that youdidn't absolutely have to say. If all American girls are as dreamy asyou, I wonder why our English lords are so irresistibly attracted acrossthe water when in search of brides!"

And then the Boy on the other side of the hedge felt his sluggish pulsequicken, and almost started to his feet, impelled by a sudden thrill ofdelight; for another voice had spoken--a voice of such infinite charmand sweetness and vitality, yet with languorous suggestion of emotionalheights and depths, that he felt a vague sense of disappointment whenthe magnetic notes finally died away. 

"Brides?" the voice echoed, with a lilt of girlish laughter runningthrough the words. "You mean '_bribes_, ' don't you? For I assure you, dear cousin, it is the metallic clink of American gold, and nothingelse, that lures your great men over the sea. As for my silence, _mabelle_, I have been uncommunicative because there really seemed nothingat all worth saying. I can't accustom myself to small-talk--I can't evenlisten to it patiently. I always feel a wild impulse to fly far, faraway, where I can close my ears to it all and listen to my own thoughts. I'm sorry if I disappoint you, Alice--I seem to disappoint everybodythat I would like to please--but I assure you, laugh at my dreams as youmay, to me my dream-life is far more attractive and beautiful than whatyou term Life. Forgive me if I hurt you, cousin. I'm peculiarlyconstituted, perhaps, but I don't like this twaddle, and I can't helpit! Everything in England is so beautiful, and yet its society seemsso--so hopelessly unsatisfactory to one who longs to _live!_"

"To live, Opal? We are not dead, surely! What do you mean by life?"

And so her name was Opal! How curiously the name suited the voice! TheBoy, as he listened, felt that no other name could possibly havematched that voice--the opal, that glorious gem in which all the firesof the sun, the iridescent glories of the rainbow, and the coldbrilliance of ice and frost and snow seemed to blend and crystallize. All this, and more, was in that mysteriously fascinating voice. 

"To live, Alice?" echoed the voice again. "To live? Why, to live is to_feel!_--to feel every emotion of which the human soul is capable, torise to the heights of love, and knowledge, and power; to sink--if needbe--to the deepest depths of despair, but, at all costs, at all hazards, to _live!_--to experience in one's own nature all the reality andfullness of the deathless emotions of life!"

The voice sank almost to the softness of a whisper, yet even then wasvibrant, alive, intense. 

"Ah, Alice, from my childhood up, I have dreamed of life and longed forit. What life really is, each must decide for himself, must he not?Some, they say, sleep their way through a dreamless existence, andnever, never wake to realities. Alice, I have sometimes wondered if thatwas to be my fate, have wondered and wondered until I have cried out inreal terror at the hideous prospect! Surely Fate could not be so cruelas to implant such a desperate desire in a soul that never was to knowits fulfilment. Could it, Alice? Tell me, _could_ it?"

The Boy held his breath now. 

Who was this girl, anyhow, who seemed to express his own thoughts asaccurately as he himself could have done? He was bored no longer. He wasroused, stirred, awakened--and intensely interested. It was as thoughthe voice of his own soul spoke to him in a dream. 

The cold, lifeless voice now chimed in again. In his impatience the Boyclenched his fists and shut his teeth together hard. Why didn't she keepstill? He didn't want to miss a single note he might have caught of thevoice--that other! Why did this nonentity--for one didn't have to seeher to be sure that she was that--have to interrupt and rob him of hispleasure?

"I don't understand you, Opal, " she was saying. (Of course she didn't, thought the Boy--how could she?) "I am sure that I live. And yet I havenever felt that way--thank goodness! It's vulgar to feel too deeply, Mamma used to say, and as I have grown older, I can see that she wasright. The best people never show any excess of emotion. That is fortragedy queens, operatic stars, and--the women we do not talk about!Ladies cultivate repose!"

("Repose!--_mon Dieu!_" thought Paul, behind the hedge. He wished thatshe would!)

"And yet, Alice, you are--married!"

"Married?--of course!--why not?" and the eavesdropper fancied he couldsee the wide-open gaze of well-bred English surprise that accompaniedthe words. "One has to marry, of course. That is what we are createdfor. But one doesn't make a fuss about it. It's only a custom--aceremony--and doesn't change existence much for most women, if theychoose sensibly. Of course there is always the chance of a_mésalliance_! A woman has to risk that. "

"And you don't--love?"

The Boy was struck by a note that was almost horror in the opaline voiceso near him. 

"Love? Why, Opal, of course we do! It's easy to love, you know, when aman is decent and half-way good to one. I am sure I think a great dealof Algernon; but I dare say I should have thought as much of any otherman I had happened to marry. That is a wife's duty!"

"_Duty!_--and you call that love?" The horror in the tones had nowchanged to scorn. 

"You have strange ideas of life, Opal. I should be afraid to indulgethem if I were you--really I should! You have lived so much in booksthat you seem to have a very garbled idea of the world. Fiction is aptto be much of a fairy tale, a crazy exaggeration of what living reallyconsists of!"

"_Afraid?_ Why should I be afraid? I am an American girl, remember, andAmericans are afraid of nothing--nothing! Come, cousin, tell to me, ifyou can, why I should be afraid. "

"Oh, I don't know! really I don't!" There was a troubled, perplexed notein the English voice now. "Such notions are apt to get girls intotrouble, and lead them to some unhappy fate. Too much 'life'--as youcall it--must mean suffering, and sorrow, and many tears--and maybe, _sin_!"

There was a shocked note in the voice of the young English matron asshe added the last word, and her voice sank to a whisper. But PaulZalenska heard, and smiled. 

"Suffering, and sorrow, and many tears, " repeated the American girl, musingly, "and maybe--sin!" Then she went on, firmly, "Very well, Alice, give me the suffering and sorrow, and many tears--and the sin, too, if it must be, for we are all sinners of greater or lessdegree--but at any rate, give me life! My life may still be far off inthe future, but when the time comes, I shall certainly know, and--Ishall _live_!"

"You are a peculiar girl, Opal, and--we don't say those things inEngland. "

"No, you don't say those things, you cold English women! You do not even_feel_ them! As for sin, Alice, to my mind there can be no worse sinunder heaven than you commit when you give yourself to a man whom you donot love better than you could possibly love any other. Oh, it is asin--it _must_ be--to sell yourself like that! It's no wonder, I think, that your husbands are so often driven to 'the women we do not talkabout' for--consolation!"

"Opal! Opal! hush! What _are_ you saying? You really--but see! isn'tthat Algernon crossing the terrace? He is probably looking for us. "

"And like a dutiful English wife, you mustn't fail to obey, I suppose!Lead the way, cousin mine, and I'll promise to follow you with duedignity and decorum. "

And the rustle of silken skirts heralded the departure of the ladiesaway from the hedge and beyond Paul's hearing. 

Then he too started at an eager, restless pace for the centre of thecrowd. He had quite forgotten the future so carefully arranged for him, and was off in hot pursuit of--what? He did not know! He only knew thathe had heard a voice, and--he followed!

As he rejoined the guests, he looked with awakened interest into everyface, listened with eager intensity to every voice. But all in vain. Itdid not occur to him that he might easily learn from his hostess theidentity of her American guest; and even if the thought had presenteditself to him, he would never have acted upon it. The experience washis alone, and he would have been unwilling to share it with any one. 

He was no longer bored as earlier in the afternoon, and he carried theassurance of enthusiasm and interest in his every glance and motion. People smiled at the solitary figure, and whispered that he must havelost Verdayne. But for once in his life, the Boy was not looking for hisfriend. 

But neither did he find the voice!

Usually among the first to depart on such occasions as these, this timehe remained until almost all the crowd had made their adieux. And it waswith a keen sense of disappointment that he at last entered his carriagefor the home of the Verdaynes. He was hearing again and again in thewords of the voice, as it echoed through his very soul, "When my timecomes, I shall certainly know, and I shall--_live!_"

The letter in his pocket no longer scorched the flesh beneath. He hadforgotten its very existence, nor did he once think of the PrincessElodie of Austria. What had happened to him?

Had he fallen in love with a--voice?

CHAPTER II

It was May at Verdayne Place, and May at Verdayne Place was altogetherdifferent from May in any other part of the world. The skies were of afar deeper and richer blue; the flowers reached a higher state offragrant and rainbow-hued perfection; the sun shining through the greenof the trees was tempered to just the right degree of shine and shadow. To an Englishman, home is the beginning and the end of the world, andPaul Verdayne was a typical Englishman. 

To be sure, it had not always been so, but Paul had outlived hisvagabond days and had become thoroughly domesticated; yet there had beena time in his youth when the wandering spirit had filled his soul, whenthe love of adventure had lent wings to his feet, and the glory ofromance had lured him to the lights and shadows of other skies thanthese. But Verdayne was older now, very much older! He had lived hislife, he said, and settled down!

In the shade of the tall trees of the park, two men were drinking in thebeauties of the season, in all the glory and splendor of itsever-changing, yet ever-enduring loveliness. One of them was past forty, the ripeness of middle age and the general air of a well-spent, well-directed, and fully-developed life lending to his face and form anunusual distinction--even in that land of distinguished men. Hiscompanion was a boy of twenty, straight and tall and proud, carryinghimself with the regal grace of a Greek god. He was a strong, handsome, healthy, well-built, and well-instructed boy, a boy at whom any one wholooked once would be sure to look the second time, even though he couldnot tell exactly wherein the peculiar charm lay. Both men were fair ofhair and blue-eyed, with clear, clean skins and well-bred English faces, and the critical observer could scarcely fail to notice how curiouslythey resembled each other. Indeed, the younger of the pair might easilyhave been the replica of the elder's youth. 

When they spoke, however, the illusion of resemblance disappeared. Inthe voice of the Boy was a certain vibrant note that was entirelylacking in the deeper tones of the man--not an accent, nor yet aninflection, but still a quality that lent a subtle suggestion of foreignshores. It was an expressive voice, neither languorous nor undulyforceful, but strangely magnetic, and adorably rich and full, andmusical, thrilling its hearers with its suggestion of latent physicaland spiritual force. 

On the afternoon of which I write, those two were facing a crisis thatmade them blind to everything of lesser import. Paul Verdayne--the man--realized this to the full. His companion--the Boy--was dimly but justas acutely conscious of it. The question had come at last--the questionthat Paul Verdayne had been dreading for years. 

"Uncle Paul, " the Boy was saying, "what relation are you to me? You arenot really my uncle, though I have been taught to call you so after thisquaint English fashion of yours. I know it is something of a secret, butI know no more! We are closer comrades, it seems to me--you and I--thanany others in all the world. We always understand each other, somehow, almost without words--is it not so? I even bear your name, and I amproud of it, because it is yours. But why must there be so much mysteryabout our real relationship? Won't you tell me just what I am to you?"

The question, long-looked-for as it was, found the elder man allunprepared. Is any one ever ready for any dire calamity, howevercertainly expected? He paced up and down under the tall trees of thepark and for a time did not answer. Then he paused and laid his handupon the shoulder of the Boy with a tenderness of touch that provedbetter than any words how close was the bond between them. 

"Tell you what you are to me! I could never, never do that! You areeverything to me, everything!"

The Boy made a motion as if to speak, but the man forestalled him. 

"We're jolly good friends, aren't we--the very best of companions? Inall the world there is no man, woman or child that is half so near anddear to me as you. Men don't usually talk about these things to oneanother, you know, Boy; but, though I am a bachelor, you see, I feeltoward you as most men feel toward their sons. What does the meredefining of the relationship matter? Could we possibly be any more toeach other than we are?"

Paul Verdayne seated himself on a little knoll beneath the shade of agiant oak. The Boy looked at him with the wistfulness of an infinitequestion in his gaze. 

"No, no, Boy! Some time, perhaps--yes, certainly--you shall know all, all! But that time has not yet come, and for the present it is best thatthings should rest as they are. Trust us, Boy--trust me--and bepatient!"

"Patient!" The Boy laughed a full, ringing laugh, as he threw himself onthe grass at his companion's feet. "I have never learned the word! Couldyou be patient, Uncle Paul, when youth was all on fire in your heart, with your own life shrouded in mystery? Could you, I say, be patientthen?"

Verdayne laughed indulgently as his strong fingers stroked the Boy'sbrown curls. 

"Perhaps not, Boy, perhaps not! But it is for you, " he continued, "foryou, Boy, to make the best of that life of yours, which you are pleasedto think clouded in such tantalizing mystery. It is for you to developevery God-given faculty of your being that all of us that love you mayhave the happiness of seeing you perform wisely and well the missionupon which you have been sent to this kingdom of yours to accomplish. Boy! every true man is a king in the might of his manhood, but upon youis bestowed a double portion of that universal royalty. This is athrone-worshipping world we are living in, Paul, and it means even morethan you can realize to be a prince of the blood!"

The Boy looked around the park apprehensively. What if someone heard?For this straight young sapling, who was only the "Boy" to PaulVerdayne, was to the world at large an heir to a throne, a king who hadbeen left in infancy the sole ruler of his kingdom. 

His visits to Verdayne Place were _incognito_. He did like to throwaside the purple now and then and be the real live boy he was at heart. He did enjoy to the full his occasional opportunities, unhampered bythe trappings and obligations of royalty. 

"A prince of the blood!" he echoed scornfully. "Bah!--what is that?Merely an accident of birth!"

"No, not an accident, Paul! Nothing in the world ever is that. Everyfragment of life has its completing part somewhere, given its place inthe scheme of the universe by intricate design--always by _design!_ Asfor the duties of your kingdom, my Prince, it is not like you to takethem so lightly. "

"I know! I know! Yet everybody might have been born a prince. It is farmore to be a man!"

"True enough, Boy! yet everybody might not have been born to yourposition. Only you could have been given the heritage that is yours! MyBoy, yours is a mission, a responsibility, from the Creator of LifeHimself. Everybody can follow--but only God's chosen few can lead! Andyou--oh, Boy! yours is a birthright above that of all other princes--ifyou only knew!"

The young prince looked wistfully upward into the eyes of the elder man. 

"Tell me, Uncle Paul! Dmitry always speaks of my birth with a reverenceand awe quite out of proportion to its possible consequence--poor oldman. And once even the Grand Duke Peter spoke of my 'divine origin'though he could not be coaxed or wheedled into committing his wise selfany further. Now you, yourself the most reserved and secretive ofindividuals when it pleases you to be so, have just been surprised intosomething of the same expression. Do you wonder that I long to unravelthe mystery that you are all so determined to keep from me? I can learnnothing at home--absolutely nothing! They glorify my mother--God blessher memory! Everyone worships her! But they never speak of you, and theyare silent, too, about my father. They simply won't tell me a thingabout him, so I don't imagine that he could have been a very good king!_Was_ he, Uncle Paul? Did you know him?"

"I never knew the king, Boy!--never even saw him!"

"But you must have heard--"

"Nothing, Boy, that I can tell you--absolutely nothing!"

Verdayne had risen again and was once more pacing back and forth underthe trees, as was his wont when troubled with painful memories. 

"But my mother--you knew _her_!"

"Yes, yes--I knew your mother!"

"Tell me about her!"

A dull, hopeless agony came into the eyes of the older man. And so hisGethsemane had come to him again! Every life has this garden to passthrough--some, alas! again and yet again! And Paul Verdayne had thoughtthat he had long since drained his cup of misery to the dregs. He knewbetter now. 

"Yes, I will tell you of your mother, Boy, " he said, and there was astrained, guarded note in his voice which his companion's quick ear didnot fail to catch. "But you must be patient if you wish to hear whatlittle there is, after all, that I can tell you. You must remember, myBoy, that it is a long time since your mother--died--and men of my agesometimes--forget!"

"I will remember, " the Boy said, gently. 

But as he looked up into the face of his friend, something in his hearttold him that Paul Verdayne did _not_ forget! And somehow the older manfelt confident that the Boy knew, and was strangely comforted by thesilent sympathy between them which both felt, but neither could express. 

"Your mother, Boy, was the noblest and most beautiful woman that evergraced a throne. Everyone who knew her must have said that! You are verylike her, Paul--not in appearance, a mistake of Fate to be everlastinglydeplored, but in spirit you are her living counterpart. Ah! you have agreat example to live up to, Boy, in attempting to follow her footsteps!There was never a queen like her--never!"

The young prince followed with the deepest absorption the words of theman who had known his mother, hanging upon the story with the breathlessinterest of a child in some fairy tale. 

"She knew life as it is given few women to know it. She was not morethan thirty-five, I think, when you were born, but she had crowded intothose years more knowledge of the world, in all its myriad phases, thanothers seem to absorb during their allotted three score and ten. And herknowledge was not of the world alone, but of the heart. She was full ofideals of advancement, of growth, of doing and being something worthythe greatest endeavor, exerting every hope and ambition to the utmostfor the future splendor of her kingdom--your kingdom now. How she lovedyou!--what splendid achievements she expected of you! how she prayedthat you might be grand, and great, and true!"

"Did you always know her?"

"Always?--no. Only for three weeks, Boy!"

"Three weeks!--three little weeks! How strange, then, that you shouldhave learned so much about her in that short space of time! She mustindeed have made a strong impression upon you!"

"Impression, you say? Boy, all that I am or ever expect to become--allthat I know or ever expect to learn--all that I have done or ever expectto accomplish--I owe to your mother. She was the one inspiration of mylife. Until I knew her, I was a nonentity. It was she who awakenedme--who taught me how to live! Three weeks! Child! child!--"

He caught himself sharply and bit his lip, forcing back the impetuouswords he had not meant to say. The silence of years still shrouded thosemysterious three weeks, and the time had not yet come when that silencecould be broken. What had he said? What possessed the Boy to-day tocling so persistently to this hitherto forbidden subject?

"Where did you meet her, Uncle?"

"At Lucerne!"

"Lucerne!" echoed the Boy, his blue eyes growing dreamy with musing. "That says nothing to me--nothing! and yet--you will laugh at me, Iknow, but I sometimes get the most tantalizing impression that Iremember my mother. It is absurd, of course--I suppose I could notpossibly remember her--and yet there is such a haunting, vague sense ofclose-clinging arms, of an intensely white and tender face bending overme--sometimes in the radiance of day and again in the soft shadows ofnight, but always, always alight with love--of kisses, soft and warm, and yet often tearful--and of black, lustrous hair, over which therealways seems to shine a halo--a very coronet of triumphant motherhood. "

Verdayne's lips moved, but no sound came from them to voice thepassionate cry in his heart, "My Queen, my Queen!"

"I suppose it is only a curious dream! It must be, of course! But it isa very real vision to me, and I would not part with it for the world. Uncle, do you know, I can never look upon the pictured face of a Madonnawithout being forcibly reminded of this vision of my mother--the motherI can see only in dreams!"

Verdayne found it growing harder and harder for him to speak. 

"I do not think that strange, Boy. Others would not understand it, but Ido. She was so intensely a mother that the spirit of the great HolyMother must have been at all times hovering closely about her! Herdeepest desires centred about her son. You were the embodiment of thegreatest, sweetest joys--if not the only real joys--of her strangelyunhappy life, and her whole thought, her one hope, was for you. In yoursoul must live all the unrealized hopes and crucified ideals of thewoman who, always every inch a queen, was never more truly regal than inthe supreme hour that crowned her your mother. "

"And am I like her, Uncle Paul? Am I really like her?"

"So much so, Boy, that she sometimes seems to live again in you. Likeher, you believe so thoroughly in the goodness and greatness of aGod--in the beauty and glory of the world fraught with lessons of lifeand death--in the omnipotence of Fate--in the truth and power andgrandeur of overmastering love. You believe in the past, in all thedreams and legends of the Long Ago still relived in the Now, in thecapabilities of the human mind, the kingship of the soul. Your voice ishers, every tone and cadence is as her own voice repeating her ownwords. Be glad, Paul, that you are like your mother, and hope that withthe power to think her thoughts and dream lier dreams, you may also havethe power to love as she loved, and, if need be, die her death!"

"But you think the same thoughts, Uncle Paul. You believe all Ibelieve!"

"Because she taught me, Paul--because she taught me! I slept the sleepof the blind and deaf and soulless until her touch woke my soul intobeing. You have always been alive to the joy of the world and the beautyof living. Your soul was born with your body and lived purposefully fromthe very beginning of things. You were born for a purpose and thatpurpose showed itself even in infancy. "

A silence fell between the two men. A long time they sat in thatsympathetic communion, each busy with his own thoughts. The older Paulwas lost in memories of the past, for his life lay all behind him--theyounger Paul was indulging in many dreams of a roseate future, for hislife was all ahead of him. 

It was a friendship that the world often wondered about--this strangeintimacy between Paul Verdayne, the famous Member of Parliament, and theyoung man from abroad who called himself Paul Zalenska. None knewexactly where Monsieur Zalenska came from, and as they had long agolearned the futility of questioning either of the men about personalaffairs, had at last reconciled themselves to never finding out. Everyone suspected that the Boy was a scion of rank--and some went sofar as to say of royalty, but beyond the fact that every May he camewith his faithful, foreign-looking attendant to Verdayne Place and spentthe summer months with the Verdayne family, nothing definite wasactually known. His elderly attendant certainly spoke some beastlyforeign jargon and went by the equally beastly foreign name of Vasili. He was known to worship his young master and to attend him with the mostmarked servility, but he was never questioned, and had he been, wouldcertainly have told no tales. 

The parents of Paul Verdayne--Sir Charles and Lady Henrietta--were veryfond of their young guest, and made much of his annual visits. As forPaul himself, he never seemed to be perfectly happy anywhere if theyoung fellow were out of his sight. 

He had made himself very much distinguished, had this Paul Verdayne. Hehad found out how to get the most out of his life and accomplish theutmost good for himself and his England with the natural endowments ofhis energetic and ambitious personality. He had become a famous orator, a noted statesman, a man of brain as well as brawn. People were glad tolisten when he talked. He inspired them with the idea--so nearly extinctin this day and age of the world--that life after all was very muchworth the living. He stirred languid pulses with a dormant enthusiasm. He roused torpid brains to thought. He had ideas and had also a way ofmaking other people share those ideas. England was proud of PaulVerdayne, as she had good reason to be. And he was only forty-threeyears old even now. What might he not accomplish in the future for theland to which he devoted all his talents, his tireless, well-directedactivities?

He had given himself up so thoroughly to political interests that he hadnot taken time to marry. This was a great disappointment to his mother, Lady Henrietta, who had set her heart upon welcoming a daughter-in-lawand a houseful of merry, romping grandchildren before the sun of herlife had gone down forever. It was also a secret source ofdisappointment to certain younger feminine hearts as well, who in thedays of his youth, and even in the ripeness of later years, had regardedPaul Verdayne with eyes that found him good to look upon. But the youngpolitician had never been a woman's man. He was chivalrous, of course, as all well-bred Englishmen are, but he kept himself as aloof from allsociety as politeness would permit, and the attack of the mostskillfully aimed glances fell harmless, even unheeded, upon hisimpenetrable armor. He might have married wherever he had willed, butSociety and her fair votaries sighed and smiled in vain, and finallydecided to leave him alone, to Verdayne's infinite relief. 

As for the Boy, he was always, as I have said, a mystery, always a topicfor the consideration of the gossips. Every year since he was a littlefellow six years old he had come to Verdayne Place for the summer; atfirst, accompanied by his nurse, Anna, and a silver-haired servant, curiously named Dmitry. Later the nurse had ceased to be a necessity, and the old servant had been replaced by Vasili, a younger, but no lessdevoted attendant. As the Boy grew older, he had learned to hunt andtook long rides with his then youthful host across the wide stretch ofEnglish country that made up the Verdayne estates and those of theneighboring gentry. Often they cruised about in distant waters, for theyoung fellow from his earliest years shared with the elder an absorbinglove of nature in all her varied and glorious forms; and in February, always in February, Verdayne found time to steal away from England for abrief visit to that far-off country in the south of Europe from whichthe Boy came. Many remembered that Verdayne, like an uncle of his, LordHubert Aldringham, had been much given to foreign travel in his youngerdays and had made many friends and acquaintances among the nobility androyalty of other lands, and although it was strange, they thought it wasnot at all improbable that the lad was connected with some one of thosegreat families across the Channel. 

As for Paul and the Boy, they knew not what people thought or said, andcared still less. There was too strong a bond of _camaraderie_ betweenthem to be disturbed by the murmurings of a wind that could blow neitherof them good or ill. 

And the Boy was now twenty years of age. 

Suddenly Paul Zalenska broke their long silence. 

"Do you know, Uncle, I sometimes have a queer feeling of fear that myfather must have done something terrible in his life--something to makestrong men shrink and shudder at the thought--something--_criminal_! Oh, I dare not think of that!" he went on hastily. "I dare not--I dare not!I think the knowledge of it would drive me mad!"

His voice sank to a half-whisper and there was a note of horror in hiswords. 

"But, what a king he must have been!--what a miserable apology for allthat royalty should be by every law, human or divine! Why isn't his nameheralded over the length and breadth of the kingdom in paeans of praise?Why isn't the whole world talking of his valor, his beneficence, hisstatesmanship? What is a king created a king for, if not to makehistory?"

He fought silently for a moment to regain his self-control, forcing thehideous idea from him and at last speaking with an air of finalitybeyond his years. 

"No, I won't think of it! May the King of the world endow me with thestrength of the gods and the wisdom of the ancient seers, that I maymake up by my efficiency for all my father's deplorable lack, and becomeall that my mother meant me to be when she gave me to the world!"

He stretched out his arms in a passionate appeal to Heaven, and PaulVerdayne, looking up at him, realized as he had never before that theBoy certainly had within him the stuff of which kings should be made. 

The Boy was not going to disappoint him. He was going to justify thehigh hopes cherished for him so long. He was going to be a man after hismother's own heart. 

"Uncle, " went on the Boy, wrought up to a high pitch of emotion, andthrowing himself down again at Verdayne's feet, "I feel with Louis XVI, 'I am too young to reign!' Why haven't I ever had a father to teach andtrain me in the way I should go? Every boy needs a good father, princesmost of all, so much more is expected of us poor royal devils than ofmore ordinary and more fortunate mortals! I know I shouldn' becomplaining like this--certainly not to you, Uncle Paul, who have beenall most fathers are to most boys! But there are times, you know, whenyou persist in keeping me at arm's length as you keep everyone else!When you put up that sign, 'Thus far and no further!' I feel myselfalmost a stranger! Won't you let me come nearer? Won't you take downthat barrier between us and let me have a father--at least, in name? I'mtired of calling you 'Uncle' who uncle never was and never could be!You're far more of a father--really you are! Let me call you in namewhat you have always been in spirit. Let me say 'Father Paul!' I likethe sound of it, don't you? 'Father Paul!'--'Father Paul!'"

Paul Verdayne felt every drop of blood leave his face. He felt as if theBoy had inadvertently laid a cold hand upon his naked heart, chilling, paralyzing its every beat. What did he mean? The Boy was just thenlooking thoughtfully at the setting sun and did not see the change thathis words called into his companion's face--thank heaven for that!--butwhat _could_ he mean?

"You can call yourself my 'Father Confessor, ' you know, if you entertainany scruples as to the propriety of a staid old bachelor's fathering astray young cub like me--that will make it all right, surely! You willlet me, won't you? In all the world there is no one so close to me asyou, and such dreams as I may happily bring to fulfillment will be, morethan you know, because of your guidance, your inspiration. You are thefather of my spirit, whoever may have been the father of my flesh! Letit be hereafter, then, not 'Uncle, ' but 'Father Paul'!"

And the older man, rising and standing by the Boy, threw his arm aroundthe young shoulders, and gazing far off to the distant west, felthimself shaken by a strange emotion as he answered, "Yes, Boy, hereafterlet it be 'Father Paul!'"

And as the sun travelled faster and faster toward the line of itscrossing between the worlds of night and day, its rays reflected a newradiance upon the faces of the two men who sat in the silent shadows ofthe park, feeling themselves drawn more closely together than everbefore, thinking, thinking, thinking-in the eyes of the man a greatmemory, in the eyes of the Boy a great longing for life!

 * * * * *

The two friends ran up to London for the theatre that night, to see afamous actor in a popular play, but neither was much interested in theperformance. Something had kindled in the heart of the man a reminiscentfire and the Boy was thinking his own thoughts and listening, everlistening. 

"I'm several kinds of a fool, " he thought, "but I'd like to hear thatvoice again and get a glimpse of the face that goes with it. I dare sayshe is anything but attractive in the flesh--if she is really in theflesh at all, which I am beginning to doubt--so I should be disenchantedif I were to see her, I suppose. But I'd like to _know_!" Yet, afterall, he could not comprehend how such a voice could accompany anunattractive face. The spirit that animated those tones must needs lightup the most ordinary countenance with character, if not with beauty, hethought; but he saw no face in the vast audience to which he cared toassign it. No, _she_ wasn't there. He was sure of that. 

But as they left the building and stood upon the pavement, awaitingtheir carriage, his blood mounted to his face, dyeing it crimson. In thesudden silence that mysteriously falls on even vast crowds, sometimes, he heard that voice again!

It was only a snatch of mischievous laughter from a brougham just beingdriven away from the curb, but it was unmistakably _the_ voice. Had theBoy been alone he would have followed the brougham and solved themystery then and there. 

The laugh rang out again on the summer evening air. It was like a liltof fairies' merriment in the moonlit revels of Far Away! It was the noteof a siren's song, calling, calling the hearts and souls of men! Itwas--But the Boy stopped and shook himself free from the "sentimentalrot" he was indulging in. 

He turned with a question on his lips, but Verdane had noticed nothingand the Boy did not speak. 

Still that laugh thrilled and mocked him all the way to Berkeley Squareand lured him on and on through the night's mysterious dreams. 

CHAPTER III

In the drawing room of her mansion on Grosvenor Square, Lady AliceMordaunt was pouring tea, and talking as usual the same triflingcommonplaces that had on a previous occasion excited her cousin'sdisdain. Opposite her sat her mother, Lady Fletcher, a perfect model ofthe well-bred English matron, while Opal Ledoux, in the daintiest andfluffiest of summer costumes, was curled up like a kitten in a corner ofthe window-seat, apparently engrossed in a book, but in reality watchingthe passers-by. 

From her childhood up she had lived in a Castle of Dreams, which she hadpeopled with the sort of men and women that suited her own fancifulromantic ideas, and where she herself was supposed to lie asleep untilher ideal knight, the Prince Charming of the story, came across landand sea to storm the Castle and wake her with a kiss. 

It was made up of moonbeams and rays of sunshine andrainbow-gleams--this dream--woven by fairy fingers into so fragile acobweb that it seemed absurd to think it could stand the winds andtorrents of Grown-Up Land; but Opal, in spite of her eighteen years, wasstill awaiting the coming of her ideal knight, though the stage settingof the drama, and her picture of just how the Prince Charming of herdreams was to look, and what he would say, had changed materially withthe passing of the years. 

If sometimes she wove strange lines of tragedy throughout the dreams, out of the threads of shadow that flitted across the sunshine of herlife, she did not reject them. She felt they belonged there and did notshrink, even when her young face paled at the curious self-pity thepassing of the thought invoked. 

Hers was a strange mixture, made up of an unusual intermingling of manybloods. Born in New Orleans, of a father who was a direct descendant ofthe early French settlers of Louisiana, and of a Creole mother, whomight have traced her ancestry back to one of the old grandees of Spain, she yet clung with a jealous affection to the land of her birth andcalled herself defiantly "a thorough-bred American!" Her mother had diedin giving her birth, and her father, while she was still too young toremember, had married a fair Englishwoman who had tried hard to be amother to the strange little creature whose blood leaped and dancedwithin her veins with all the fire and romance of foreign suns. Gay andpleasure-mad as she usually appeared, there was always the shadow of aheartache in her eye, and one felt the possibility of a tragedy in hernature. In fact one felt intuitively sorry--almost afraid--for her lesther daring, adventurous spirit should lead her too close to theprecipice along the rocky pathway of life. 

She was thinking many strange thoughts as she sat looking out of thewindow. Her English cousins, related to her only through her stepmother, yet called kin for courtesy's sake, had given up trying to understandher complexities, as she had likewise given up trying to explainherself. If they were pleased forever to consider her in the light of aconundrum, she thought, why--let them!

After a while the ladies at the tea-table began to chat in moreconfidential tones. Opal was not too oblivious to her surroundings tonotice, nor to grasp the fact that they were discussing her, but thatknowledge did not interest her. She was so used to being considered acuriosity that it had ceased to have any special concern for her. Sheonly hoped that they would sometime succeed in understanding her betterthan she had yet learned to understand herself. It might have interestedher, however, had she overheard this particular conversation, for itshed a great light upon certain shades of character she had discoveredin herself and often wondered about, but had never had explained to her. 

But she did not hear. 

"I am greatly concerned about Opal, " Lady Alice was saying. "She is themost difficult creature, Mamma--you've no idea how peculiar--with themost dangerous, positively _immoral_ ideas. I do wish she were safelymarried, for then--well, there is really no knowing what might happen toa girl who thinks and talks as she does. I used to think it might be asort of American pose--put on for startling effect, you know--but Ibegin to think she actually means it!"

"Yes, she means it, " replied Lady Fletcher, lowering her voicediscreetly, till it was little more than a whisper. "She has always hadjust such notions. It gives Amy a great deal of trouble and worry tokeep her straight. You know--or perhaps you didn't know, for we don'ttalk of these things often, especially when they are in one'sfamily--but there is a bad strain in her blood and they are alwayslooking for it to crop out somewhere. Her mother married happily--andescaped the curse--but for several generations back the women of herfamily have been of peculiar temperament and--they've usually gone wrongsometime in their lives. It seems to be in the blood. They can't helpit. Mr. Ledoux told Amy all about it at the time of their marriage, andthat is the reason they have tried to keep Opal as secluded as possiblefrom the usual free-and-easy associations of American girls, and are soanxious to marry her off wisely. "

"And speedily, " put in Alice--"the sooner the better!"

"Yes, yes--speedily!"

Lady Fletcher gave an uneasy glance in Opal's direction before shecontinued. 

"You are too young to have heard the story, Alice, but hergrandmother--a black-eyed Spanish lady of high rank--was made quiteunpleasantly notorious by her associations with a brother of LadyHenrietta Verdayne. He was an unprincipled roué--this Lord HubertAldringham--a libertine who openly boasted of the conquests he had madeabroad. Being appointed to many foreign posts in the diplomatic service, he was naturally on intimate terms with people of rank and royalty. Theysay he was very fascinating, with the devil's own eye, and ten times asdevilish a heart--"

"Why, Mamma!"

Alice was shocked. 

"I am only repeating what they said, child, " apologized the elder womanmeekly. "Women will be fools, you know, over a handsome face and atender voice--some women, I mean--and that's what Opal has to fightagainst. "

"Poor Opal, " murmured Alice, "I did not know!"

"Some even go so far as to say--"

Again Lady Fletcher looked up apprehensively, but Opal was stillabsorbed in her dreams. 

"To say--what, Mother?"

"Well, of course it's only talk--nobody can actually _know, _ I suppose, and I wouldn't, of course, be quoted as saying anything for the world, dear knows; but they say that it is more than probable that Opal'smother was . . . _Lord Hubert's own daughter!"_

"Oh, Mother! If it is true--if it _could_ be true--what a fight forher!"

"Yes, and the worst of it is with Opal, she won't fight. She has beenrigidly trained in the principles of virtue and propriety from her verybirth, and yet she horrifies every one at times by shocking ideas--thatno one knows where she gets, nor, worse yet, where they may lead!"

"But she is good, Mother. She has the noblest ideas of charity andkindness and altruism, of the advancement of all that's good and true inthe world, of the attainment of knowledge, of the beauties andconsolation of religion. It's fine to hear her talk when she'sinspired--not a bit preachy, you know--she's certainly far enough fromthat--but more like reading some beautiful poem you can but halfunderstand, or listening to music that makes you wish you were better, whether you take in its full meaning or not. "

This was a long speech for Lady Alice. Her mother looked at her inamazement. There certainly must be something out of the ordinary in thispeculiar American cousin to wake Alice from her customary languor. 

Alice smiled at her mother's surprise. 

"Strange, isn't it, Mother?" she asked, half ashamed of her unusualenthusiasm. "But it's true. She'd help some good man to be a power inthe world. I feel it so often when she talks. I didn't know women everthought such things as she does. I-I-I believe we can trust her, Mother, to steer clear of everything!"

"I hope so, Alice; I am sure I hope so, but--I don't know. I am afraidit was a mistake to keep her so much alone. It gives her more unrealideas of life than actual contact with the world would have done. "

Opal Ledoux left the window and sauntered down the long drawing-roomtoward the table where the speakers were sitting. 

"What are you talking about?--me?"

The cousins were surprised and showed it by blushing guiltily. 

Opal laughed merrily. 

"Dreary subject for a dreary day! I hope you found it more interestingthan I have!" And she stretched her small figure to its utmost height, which was not a bit above five foot, and shrugged her shoulders lazily. 

"What are you reading, Opal?" asked Lady Fletcher, in an effort tochange the subject, looking with some interest at the volume that thegirl carried. 

"Don't ask me--all twaddle and moonshine! I ought not to waste myvaluable time with such trash. There isn't a real character in the book, not one. When I write a book, and I presume I shall some time, if I livelong enough, I shall put people into it who have real flesh and blood inthem and who do startling things. But I'll have to live it all first!"

"Live the startling things, Opal? God forbid!"

"Surely! Why not?"

And Opal dropped listlessly into a chair, tossed the offending book on atable, and taking a cup of tea from the hand of her cousin, began to sipit with an air of languid indifference, which sat strangely on heryouthful, almost childlike figure. 

"By the way, Alice, " she asked carelessly, "who was the young man whostared at us so rudely last night as we drove away from the theatre?"

"I saw no young man staring, Opal. Where was he?"

"Why, he stood on the pavement, waiting, I suppose, for his carriage, and as we drove away he looked at me as though he thought I had no rightto live, and still less to laugh--I believe I was laughing--and as weturned the corner I peeped back through the curtain, and he still stoodthere in the full glare of the light, staring. It's impolite, cousins--_very! Gentlemen_ don't stare at girls in America!"

"What did he look like, Opal?" asked Lady Fletcher. 

"Like a Greek god!" answered the girl, without a second's hesitation. 

"What!"

Both women gasped, simultaneously. They were dismayed. 

"Oh, don't be shocked! He had the full panoply of society war-paint on. He was certainly properly clothed, but as to his being in his rightmind, I have my doubts--serious doubts! He stared!"

"I hope you didn't stare at him, Opal!"

"Well, I did! What could he expect? And I laughed at him, too! But Idon't believe he saw me at all, more's the pity. I am quite sure hewould have fallen in love with me if he had!"

"Opal!"

Opal was thoroughly enjoying herself now. She did enjoy shocking peoplewho were so delightfully shockable!

"Why, _'Opal'?"_ and her mimicry was irresistible. "Don't you think I'ma bit lovable, cousin?--not a bit? You discourage me! I'm doomed to be aspinster, I suppose! Ah, me! And I'd far rather be the spinster's cat!Cats aren't worried about the conventions and all that sort of thing. Happy animals! While we poor two-footed ones they call human--only wearen't really more than half so--have to keep our claws well hidden andpurr hypocritically, no matter how roughly the world rubs our fur thewrong way, nor how wild we are to scratch and spit and bristle! Wouldn'tyou like to be a cat, Alice?"

"Goodness, child! What an idea! I am very well contented, Opal, withthe sphere of life into which I have been placed!"

"Happy, happy Alice! May that state of mind endure forever! But come!Haven't you an idea, either of you, who my Knight of the Stare can be?"

"You didn't describe him, Opal. "

Opal opened her eyes in wide surprise. 

"Didn't I? Why, I thought I did, graphically! A Greek god, dressed _enrègle_. What more do you want? I am sure anyone ought to recognize himby that. "

Her listeners looked at her in real consternation, which she was quickto see. Her eyes danced. 

"Well, if you insist upon details, I can supply a few, I guess, if Itry. I am really dying of curiosity to know who he is and why he stared. Of course I didn't look at him very closely. It wouldn't havebeen--er--what do you call it?--proper. And of course I could not seeclearly at night, anyway. But I did notice he was about six feet tall. Imagine me, poor little me, looking up to six feet! With broadshoulders; an athletic, muscular figure, like a young Hercules; awell-shaped head, like Apollo's, covered with curls of fair hair; asmooth, clear skin, with the tint of the rose in his cheek that deepenedto blood-red when his blue eyes, in which the skies of all the worldseemed to be mirrored, stared with an expression like that of a man uponwhom the splendor of some glorious Paradise was just dawning. He lookedlike an Englishman, yet something in his attitude and general appearancemade me think that he was not. His hands--"

"Opal! Opal! What do you mean? How could you see so much of a young manin so short a time? And at night, too?"

Opal pouted. 

"You wanted a detailed description. I was trying to give it to you. As Itold you at the start, I couldn't see much. But anyway, he stared!"

"And I dare say he wasn't the only one who stared!" put in Lady Alice indry tones of reprehension. "I can't imagine who it could be, can you, mother?"

"Not unless it was that strange young Monsieur Zalenska--_Paul_Zalenska, I believe he calls himself--Paul Verdayne's guest. I ratherthink, from the description, that it must have been he!"

"Zalenska? What a name! I wonder if he won't let me call him 'Paul!'"said the incorrigible Opal, musingly. "I shall ask him the first time Isee him. Paul's a pretty name! I like that--but I'll never, never beable to twist my tongue around the other. He'd get out of hearing beforeI could call him and that would never do at all! But 'Monsieur, ' yousay? Why 'Monsieur'? He certainly doesn't look at all like a Frenchman!"

"No one knows what he is, Opal; nor who. That is, no one but theVerdaynes. He has always made a mystery of himself. "

Opal clapped her small hands childishly. 

"Charming! My ideal knight in the flesh! But how shall I attract him?"

She knitted her brows and pondered as seriously as though the fate ofnations depended upon her decision. 

"Shall I send him my card, Alice, and ask him to call? Or would it bebetter to make an appointment with him for the Park? Perhaps a'personal' in the _News_ would answer my purpose--do you think he readsthe _News_, or would the _Times_ be better? Come, cousins, what do youthink? I am so young, you know! Please advise me. "

She clasped her hands in a charming gesture of helpless appeal and theladies looked at one another in horrified silence. What unheard of thingwould this impossible girl propose next! They would be thankful whenthey saw her once more safely embarked for the "land of the free, " andout from under their chaperonage, they hoped, forever. They realizedthat she was quite beyond their restraining powers. Had she no sense ofdecency at all?

The door opened, callers were announced, and the day was saved. 

Opal straightened up, put on what she called her "best dignity" andcomported herself in so very well-bred and amiable a manner that hercousins quite forgave all her past delinquencies and smiled approvalupon the charming courtesy she extended to their guests. She could be_such_ a lady when she would! No one could resist her! And yet they feltthemselves sitting upon the crater of a volcano liable to erupt at anymoment. One never felt quite safe with Opal. 

But, much to their surprise and relief, everything went beautifully, andthe guests departed, delighted with Lady Alice's "charming Americancousin, so sweet, so dainty, so witty, so brilliant, and altogetherlovely--really quite a dear, you know!"

But for all that, Lady Alice Mordaunt and Lady Fletcher were far fromfeeling easy over their guest, and ardently wished that the girl'sfather would cut short his visit to France and return to take her backwith him to America. And while these two worthy ladies worried andfretted, Opal Ledoux laughed and dreamed. 

And in a big mansion over in Berkeley Square Monsieur Paul Zalenskawondered--and listened. 

CHAPTER IV

It was a whole two weeks after the Boy's experience at the theatre, andthough the echoes of that mysterious voice still rang through all hisdreams at night, and most of his waking hours, he had not heard its liltagain. 

Paul Verdayne smiled to himself to note the youngster's sudden interestin society. He had not--strange as it may seem--been told a word of theexperience, but he was not curious. He certainly knew the world, ifanyone knew it, and though he was sure he recognized the symptoms, hehad too much tact to ask, "Who is the girl?"

"Let the Boy have his little secrets, " he thought, remembering his owncallow days. "They will do him good. "

And though the Boy felt an undue sense of guilt, he continued to keephis lips closed and his eyes and ears open, though it often seemed soutterly useless to do so. Sometimes he wondered if he had dropped tosleep, there behind the hawthorn hedge that afternoon, and dreamed itall. 

Verdayne and the Boy were sitting at luncheon at the Savoy. Sir Charlesand Lady Henrietta had gone down to Verdayne Place for a week, and thetwo men were spending most of their time away from the lonely house inBerkeley Square. 

That day they were discussing the Boy's matrimonial prospects asproposed by the Grand Duke Peter--indeed, they were usually discussingthem. The Boy had written, signifying his acceptance and approval of thearrangements as made. Nothing else was expected of him for the present, but his nature had not ceased its revolt against the decree of Fate, andPaul Verdayne shared his feeling of repugnance to the utmost. PerhapsVerdayne felt it even more acutely than the young Prince himself, for heknew so much better all that the Boy was sacrificing. But he also knew, as did the poor royal victim himself, that it was inevitable. 

"I don't wonder at the court escapades that occasionally scandalize allEurope, " said the Boy. "I don't wonder at all! The real wonder is thatmore of the poor slaves to royalty do not snap the chains that bindthem, and bolt for freedom. It would be like me, --very like me!"

And Verdayne could say nothing. He knew of more reasons than one why itwould be very like the Boy to do such a thing, and he sighed as hethought that some time, perhaps, he might do it. And yet he could notblame him!

"Father Paul, " went on the Boy, his thoughts taking a new turn, "you area bachelor--a hopeless old bachelor--and you have never told me why. Ofcourse there's a woman or two in it! We have talked about everythingelse under the sun, I think--you and I--but, curiously enough, we havenever talked of love! Yet I feel sure that you believe in it. Don't you, Father Paul? Come now, confess! I am in a mood for sentiment to-day, andI want to hear what drove you to a life of single blessedness--what mademy romantic old pal such a confirmed old celibate! I don't believe thatyou object to matrimony on general principles. Tell me your love-story, please, Father Paul. "

"What makes you so certain that I have had one, Boy?"

"Oh, I don't know just why, but I am certain! It's there in your lipswhen you smile, in your eyes when you are moved, in your voice when youallow yourself to become reminiscent. You are full of memories that youhave never spoken of to me. And now, Father Paul--now is the acceptedtime!"

For a moment Verdayne was nonplussed. What could he reply? There wasonly one love-story in his life, and that one would end only with hisown existence, but he could not tell that story to the Boy--yet!Suddenly, however, an old, half-forgotten memory flashed across hismind. Of course he had a love-story. He would tell the Boy the story ofIsabella Waring. 

So, as they sat together over their coffee and cigarettes, Verdayne toldhis young guest about the Curate's daughter, who had all unconsciouslywielded such an influence over the events of his past life. He told ofthe girl's kindness to him when he had broken his collarbone; of herassistance so freely offered to his mother; of her jolly, livelyspirits, her amiable disposition and general gay good-fellowship; andthen of the unlucky kiss that had aroused the suspicion and augustdispleasure of Lady Henrietta, and had sent her erring son a wandererover the face of Europe--to forget!

He painted his sadness at leaving home--and Isabella--in patheticcolors. Indeed, he became quite affecting when he pictured his partingwith Isabella, and when in repeating his parting words, he managed toget just the right suspicion of a tremble into his voice, he really feltquite proud of his ability as a story-teller. 

The Boy was plainly touched. 

"What foolishness to think that such a love as yours could be curedmerely by sending you abroad!" he said. 

"Just what I thought, Boy--utter folly!"

"Of course it didn't cure you, Father Paul. You didn't learn to forget, did you? Oh, it was cruel to send you away when you loved her likethat! I didn't think it of Aunt Henrietta--I didn't indeed!"

"Oh, you mustn't blame mother, Boy. She meant it for the best, just asyour Uncle Peter now means it for the best for you and yours. Shethought I would forget. "

"Was she very, very beautiful, Father Paul? But of course she was, if_you_ loved her!"

"She was pretty, Boy--at least I thought so. "

"Big or little?"

"Tall--very tall. "

"I like tall, magnificent women. There's something majestic about them. I hope the Princess Elodie"--and the Boy made a wry face--"will bequite six foot tall. I could never love a woman small either in body ormind. I am sure I should have liked your Isabella, Father Paul. Majesticwomen of majestic minds for me, for there you have the royal stamp ofnature that makes some women born to the purple. Yes, I am sure I shouldhave liked Isabella. Tell me more. "

Paul Verdayne smiled. He should hardly have considered Isabella Waringin any degree "majestic"--but he did not say so. 

"She was charmingly healthy and robust--athletic, you know, and allthat--with light fluffy hair. I believe she used to wear it in a net. Blue eyes, of course--thoroughly English, you know--and a fine comrade. Liked everything that I liked, as most girls at that age didn't, naturally. Of course, mother couldn't appreciate her. She wasn't herstyle at all. And she naturally thought--mother did, I mean--that whenshe sent me away 'for my health'"--the Boy smiled--"that I'd forget allabout her. "

Verdayne began to think he wasn't telling it well after all. He lookedout of the window. It was getting hard to meet the frank look in theBoy's blue eyes. 

"Forget!" and there was a fine scorn in the tones of the youngenthusiast. "But you didn't! you didn't! I'm sure you didn't!"

The romantic story appealed strongly to the Boy's mood. 

"But why didn't you marry her when you came back, Father Paul? Did shedie?"

"No, she didn't die. She is still living, I believe. "

"Then why didn't you marry her, Father Paul? Did they still oppose it?Surely when you came home and they saw you had not forgotten, it wasdifferent. Tell me how it was when you came home. "

And Paul Verdayne, in a voice he tried his best to make very sad andheart-broken, replied with downcast eyes, "When I came home, Boy, Ifound Isabella Waring ready to marry a curate, and happy over theprospect of an early wedding. So, you see, my share in her life wasover. "

The Boy's face fell. He had not anticipated this ending to the romance. How could any woman ever have proved faithless to his Father Paul! Andhow could he, poor man, still keep his firm, dauntless belief in thegoodness and truth of human nature after so bitter an experience asthis! It shocked his sense of right and justice--this story. He wishedhe had not asked to hear it. 

"Thank you for telling me, Father Paul. It was kind of you to open yourpast life to me like this, and very unkind of me to ask what I shouldhave known would cost you such pain to tell. I am truly sorry for itall, Father Paul. Thank you again--and forgive me!"

"It's a relief to open one's heart, sometimes, to one who cansympathize, " replied Verdayne, with a deep sigh. But he felt like amiserable hypocrite. 

Poor Isabella Waring! He had hardly given her a passing thought intwenty years. And now he had vilified her to help himself out of a tightcorner. Well, she was always a good sort. She wouldn't mind beingused--or even misused--to help out her "old pal" this way. Still it madehim feel mean, and he was glad when the Boy dropped the subject andturned again to his own difficulties. 

But the mind of the young prince was restive, that day. Nothing held hisattention long. It seemed, like his eye, to be roving hither andthither, seeking something it never could find. 

"You have been to America, Father Paul, haven't you?" he asked. 

America? Yes, Verdayne had been to America. It was in America that hehad passed one season of keenest anguish. He had good reason to rememberit--such good reason that in all their wanderings about the world he hadnever seen fit to take the Boy there. 

But something had aroused the young fellow's passing interest, and nownothing would satisfy him save that he must hear all about America; andso, for a full hour, as best he could, Verdayne described the country ofthe far West as he remembered it. 

"Nothing in America appealed to me so strongly as the giganticprairies, " he said at last. "You were so deeply moved by our trip toAfrica, Boy, that you must remember the impression of vastness andinfinity the great desert made upon us. Well, in the glorious West ofAmerica it is as if the desert had sprung to life, and from every grainof sand had been born a blade of grass, waving and fluttering with thejoy of new birth. Oh, it is truly wonderful, Paul! Once I went therewith the soil of my heart scorched as dry and lifeless as the burningsands of Sahara, but in that revelation of a new creation, some pulsewithin me sprang mysteriously into being again. It could never be thesame heart that it once was, but it would now know the semblance of anew existence. And I took up the burden of life again--albeit a strange, new life--and came home to fight it out. The prairies did all that forme, Boy!" He paused for a moment, and then spoke in a sadder tone. "Itwas soon after that, Paul, that I first found you. "

Paul Zalenska thought that he understood. That, of course, was afterIsabella Waring had wrecked his life. Cruel, heartless Isabella! He hadnever even heard her name before to-day, but he hated her, wherever shemight be!

"There is a legend they tell out there that is very pretty andappropriate, " went on Verdayne, dreamily. "They say that when theCreator made the world, He had indiscriminately strewn continents andvalleys, mountains and seas, islands and lakes, until He came to thewestern part of America, and despite His omnipotence, was puzzled toknow what new glories He could possibly contrive for this corner of theearth. Something majestic and mighty it must be, He thought, and yet ofan altogether different beauty from that in the rest of theuniverse--something individual, distinctive. The seas still overflowedthe land, as they had through past eternities, awaiting His touch tocall into form and being the elements still sleeping beneath thewater--the living representation of His thought. Suddenly stretching outHis rod, He bade the waters recede--and they did so, leaving a vastextent of grassy land where the majestic waves had so lately rolled andtossed. And it is said that the land retains to this day the memory ofthe sea it then was, while the grasses wave with a subtle suggestion ofthe ocean's ebb and flow beneath the influence of a wind that is like noother wind in the world so much as an ocean breeze; while the gulls, having so well learned their course, fly back and forth as they didbefore the mystic change from water into earth. Indeed, the firstimpression one receives of the prairie is that of a vast sea of growingvegetation!"

The Boy's eyes sparkled. This was the fanciful Father Paul that heloved best of all. 

"Some time we must go there, Father Paul. Is it not so?"

"Yes, Boy, some time!"

CHAPTER V

Rebellious thoughts were flitting through the brain of Paul Zalenska ashe rode forth the next morning, tender and fanciful ones, too, as hewatched the sun's kisses fall on leaf and flower and tree, drying withtheir soft, insistent warmth the tears left by the dew of night, andwooing all Nature to awake--to look up with glorious smiles, for theworld, after all, is beautiful and full of love and laughter. 

Why should _not_ Paul be happy? Was he not twenty, and handsome, andrich, and popular, and destined for great things? Was there a want inthe world that he could not easily have satisfied, had he so desired?And was he not officially betrothed to the Princess Elodie of Austria--

"Damn the Princess Elodie!" he thought, with more emphasis thanreverence, and he rode along silently, slowly, a frown clouding hisfresh, boyish brow, face to face with the prose of the existence hewould fain have had all romance and poetry. 

It had all been arranged for him by well-meaning minds--minds that couldnever see how the blessing they had intended to bestow might by anychance become a curse. 

The Boy came of age in February next--February nineteenth--but it hadbeen the strongly expressed wish of his mother that his coronationshould not take place until May. 

For was it not in May that she had met her Paul?

She had felt, from the birth of the young Prince, a presentiment of herown early death, and had formed many plans and voiced many preferencesfor his future. No one knew what personal reasons the Imperatorskoye hadfor the wish, but she had so definitely and unmistakably made the desireknown to all her councillors that none dreamed of disobeying the mandateof their deceased and ever-to-be-lamented Queen. Her slightest wish hadalways been to them an Unassailable law. 

So the coronation ceremonies were to take place in the May following thePrince's birthday, and the Regent had arranged that the marriage shouldalso be celebrated at that time. Of course, the Boy had acquiesced. Hesaw no reason to put it off any longer. It was always best to swallowyour bitterest pill first, he thought, and get the worst over and thetaste out of your mouth as soon as possible. 

Until that eventful time, the Prince was free to go where he pleased, and to do whatever he wished. He had insisted upon this liberty, and theRegent, finding him in all other respects so amenable to his leading, gladly made the concession. This left him a year--that is, nearly ayear, for it was June now--of care-free bachelorhood; a year for one, who was yet only a dreamy boy, to acquire the proper spirit for a happybridegroom; a year of Father Paul!

He rode along aimlessly for a short distance, scarcely guiding hishorse, and only responding to the greetings of acquaintances he chancedto meet with absent-minded, though still irreproachable, courtesy. Hewas hardly thinking at all, now--at least consciously. He was simplyglad to be alive, as Youth is glad--in spite of any possible, orimpossible, environment. 

Suddenly his eyes fell upon a feminine rider some paces in advance, whoseemed to attract much attention, of which she was--apparently--delightfully unconscious. Paul marked the faultless proportions of herhorse. 

"What a magnificent animal!" he thought. Then, under his breath, headded, "and what a stunning rider!"

She was only a girl--about eighteen or nineteen, he should judge by herfigure and the girlish poise of her small head--but she certainly knewhow to ride. She sat her horse as though a part of him, and controlledhis every motion as she would her own. 

"Just that way might she manage a man, " Paul thought, and then laughedaloud at the absurdity of the thought. For he had never seen the girlbefore. 

Paul admired a good horsewoman--they are so pitifully few. And hefollowed her, at a safe distance, with an interest unaccountable, evento him. Finally she drew rein before one of the houses facing the Row, dismounted, and throwing the train of her habit gracefully over her arm, walked to the door with a brisk step. Paul instantly likened her to abird, so lightly tripping over the walk that her feet scarcely seemed totouch the ground. She was a wee thing--certainly not more than five foottall--and _petite_, almost to an extreme. The Boy had expressed apreference, only a few days before, for tall, magnificent women. Now hesuddenly discovered that the woman for a man to love should by all meansbe short and small. He wondered why it had never occurred to him in thatlight before, and thought of Jacques' question about Rosalind, "Whatstature is she of?" and Orlando's reply, "As high as my heart!"

The girl who had aroused this train of thought had reached the big stonesteps by this time, and suddenly turning to look over her shoulder, justas he passed the gate, met his gaze squarely. Gad! what eyes thosewere!--full of mystery and magnetism, and--possibilities!

For an instant their eyes clung together in that strange mingling ofglances that sometimes holds even utter strangers spell-bound by itscompelling force. 

Then she turned and entered the house, and Paul rode on. 

But that glance went with him. It tormented him, troubled him, perplexedhim. He felt a mad desire to turn back, to follow her into that house, and compel her to meet his eyes again. Did she know the power of her owneyes? Did she know a look like that had almost the force of a caress?

He told himself that they were the most beautiful eyes that he had everseen--and yet he could not have told the color of them to save his soul. He began to wonder about that. It vexed him that he could not remember. 

"Eyes!" he thought, "those are not eyes! They are living magnets, drawing a fellow on and on, and he never stops to think what color theyare--nor _care!_"

And then he pulled himself up sharply, and declared himself a madmanfor raving on the street in broad daylight over the mere accidentalmeeting with a pair of pretty eyes. He--the uncrowned king of ato-be-glorious throne! He--the affianced husband of the Princess Elodieof--Hell! He refused to think of it! And again the horse he rode and thePark trees heard a bit of Paul Zalenska's English profanity that shouldhave made them hide in shame over the depravity of youth. 

But the strangest thing of all was that the Boy, for the nonce, was notthinking of--nor listening for--the voice!

He turned as he reached the end of the Row and rode slowly back. But thehorses and groom had already gone from the gate. And inwardly cursinghis slowness, he started on a trot for Berkeley Square. 

He was not very far from the Verdayne house, when, turning a suddencorner, he came upon the girl again, riding at a leisurely pace in theopposite direction. Startled by his unexpected appearance, she glancedback over her shoulder as she passed, surprising him--and perhapsherself, too, for girls do that sometimes--by a ringing and tantalizinglaugh!

That laugh! Wonder upon wonders, it was _the voice_!

It was she--Opal!

He wheeled his horse sharply, but swift as he was, she was yet swifterand was far down the street before he was fairly started in pursuit. Hisone desire of the moment was to catch and conquer the sprite thattempted him. 

Her veil fluttered out behind her on the breeze, like a signal ofno-surrender, and once--only once--she looked back over her shoulder. She was too far ahead for him to catch the glint of her eye, but heheard the echo of that laugh--that voice--and it spurred him on and on. 

Suddenly, by some turn known only to herself, she eluded him and escapedbeyond his vision--and beyond his reach. He halted his panting horse atthe crossing of several streets, and swore again. But though he lookedsearchingly in every possible direction, there was no trace of thefugitive to be seen. It was as though the earth had opened andswallowed horse and rider in one greedy gulp. 

Baffled and more disappointed than he cared to own, Paul rode slowlyback to Berkeley Square, his heart bounding with the excitement of thechase and yet thoroughly vexed over his failure, at himself, his horse, the girl. 

At the house he found letters from the Regent awaiting him, recalling tohim his position and its unwelcome responsibilities. One of themenclosed a full-length photograph of his future bride. 

Fate had certainly been kind to him by granting his one expressed wish. The Princess Elodie was what he had desired, "quite six-foot tall. " Yethe pushed the portrait aside with an impatient gesture, and before hismental vision rose a little figure tripping up the steps, with abackward glance that still seemed to pierce his very soul. 

He was not thinking, as he certainly should have been, of the PrincessElodie! And he had not even noticed whether she had any eyes or not!

He looked again at the picture of the Austrian princess, lying faceupward upon the pile of letters. With disgust and loathing he swept theoffending portrait into a drawer, and summoning Vasili, began to make ahasty toilet. 

Vasili had never seen his young master in such bad humor. He wasunpardonably late for luncheon, but that would not disturb him, surelynot to such an extent as this!

He was greatly disturbed by something. There was no denying that. 

He had found the voice, but--

CHAPTER VI

It was the next morning at the breakfast table that Paul Zalenska, listlessly looking over the "Society Notes" in the _Times_, came uponthis significant notice:

 "Mr. Gilbert Ledoux and daughter, Miss Opal Ledoux, of New Orleans, accompanied by Henri, Count de Roannes, of Paris, have taken passage on the Lusitania, which sails for New York on July 3rd. "

It was _she_, of course!--who else could it be? Surely there could notbe more than one Opal in America!

"Father Paul, I notice that the Lusitania is to sail for America on thethird of July. Can't we make it?"

Verdayne smiled quietly at the suddenness of the proposal, but was notunduly surprised. He remembered many unaccountable impulses of his ownwhen his life was young and his blood was hot. He remembered too with atender gratitude how his father had humored him and--was he not "FatherPaul"?

"I see no reason why not, Boy. "

"You see, I have already lost a whole month out of my one free year. Iam unwilling to waste a single hour of it, Father Paul--wouldn't you be?And we _must_ see America together, you and I, before I go backto--prison!"

"Certainly, Boy, certainly. My time is yours--when you want it, andwhere you want it, the whole year through!"

"I know that, Father Paul, and--I thank you!"

It was more difficult to arrange matters with Lady Henrietta. She wasnot so young as she once was and she still adored her son, as only themother of but one child can adore, and could not bear the idea of havinghim away from her. Old and steady as he had now become, he was still herboy, the idol of her heart. Yet she felt, as her son did, that the Boywas entitled to the few months of liberty left him, and she did notgreatly object, though there was a wistful look in her eyes as theyrested on her son that told how keenly she felt every separation fromhim. 

As for Sir Charles, he had not lost the knowing twinkle of the eye. Moreover, he knew far better than his wife how real was the claim theiryoung guest had upon their son. And he bade them go with a hearty graspof the hand and a bluff Godspeed. 

So it was settled that Verdayne and the Boy, attended only by Vasili, were to sail for America on the third of July, and passage wasimmediately secured on the Lusitania. 

 * * * * *

On the morning of the day appointed, Paul Zalenska from an upper deckwatched the party he had been awaiting, as they mounted the gang-plank. 

Gilbert Ledoux he scarcely noticed. The Count de Roannes, too, interested him no longer when, with a hasty glance, he had assuredhimself that the Frenchman was as old as Ledoux and not the gay youngdandy in Opal's train that he had feared to find him. 

He had eyes alone for the girl, and he watched her closely as shetripped up the gang-plank, clinging to her father's arm and chatteringgayly in that voice he so well remembered. 

She was not so small at close range as she had appeared at a distance, but possessed an exquisite roundness of figure and softness of outlinewell in proportion to the shortness of her stature. 

He had been proud of his kingship--very proud of his royal blood and hismission to his little kingdom. But of late he had known some rebelliousthoughts, quite foreign to his mental habit. 

And to-day, as he looked at Opal Ledoux, he thought, "After all, howmuch of a real man can I ever be? What am I but a petty pawn on thechessboard of the world, moved hither and yon, to gain or to lose, bythe finger of Fate!"

As Opal Ledoux passed him, she met his glance, and slightly flushed bythe _rencontre_, looked back over her shoulder at him and--smiled! And_such_ a smile! She passed on, leaving him tingling in every fibre withthe thrill of it. 

It was Fate. He had felt it from the very first, and now he was sure ofit. 

How would it end? How _could_ it end?

Paul Zalenska was very young--oh, very young, indeed!

CHAPTER VII

The next day Verdayne and his young companion were introduced to Mr. Ledoux and his guest. 

Gilbert Ledoux, a reserved man evidently descended from generations ofthinking people, was apparently worried, for his face bore unmistakablesigns of some mental disturbance. Paul Zalenska was struck by thehaunted expression of what must naturally have been a grave countenance. It was not guilt, for he had not the face of a man pursued byconscience, but it certainly was fear--a real fear. And Paul wondered. 

As for the Count de Roannes, the Boy dismissed him at once as unworthyof further consideration. He was brilliantly, even artificiallypolished--glaringly ultra-fashionable, ostentatiously polite and suave. In the lines of his bestial face he bore the records of a lifetime'sprofligacy and the black tales of habitual self-indulgence. Paul hatedhim instinctively and wondered how a man of Ledoux's unmistakablerefinement could tolerate him for a moment. 

It was not until the middle of the following afternoon that Opal Ledouxappeared on deck, when her father, with an air of pride, mingled with acertain curious element of timidity, presented to her in due form boththe Englishman and his friend. 

The eyes of the two young people flashed a recognition that the lips ofeach tacitly denied as they responded conventionally to theintroduction. 

Paul noticed that the shadow of her father's uneasiness was reflectedupon her in a somewhat lesser but all too evident degree. And again hewondered. 

A few moments of desultory conversation that was of no interest toPaul--and then the Count proposed a game of _écarté_, to which Verdayneand Ledoux assented readily enough. 

But not so our Boy!

_Ecarté!_ Bah! When did a boy of twenty ever want to play cards withinsound of the rustle of a petticoat?--and _such_ a petticoat!

When the elderly gallant noted the attitude of the young fellow he casta quick glance of suspicion at Opal. He would have withdrawn hisproposal had he been able to find any plausible excuse. But it was toolate. And with an inward invective on his own blundering, he followedthe other gentlemen to the smoking-room. 

And Paul and Opal were at last face to face--and alone!

He turned as the sound of the retreating steps died away and looked longand searchingly into her face. If the girl intended to ignore theirformer meeting, he thought, he would at once put that idea beyond allquestion. She bore his scrutiny with no apparent embarrassment. She wasan American girl, and as she would have expressed it, she was "game!"

"Well?" she said at last, questioningly. 

"Yes, " he responded, "well--well, indeed, _at last_!"

She bowed mockingly. 

"And, " he went on, "I have been searching for you a long time, Opal!"

He had not intended to say that, but having said it, he would not takeit back. 

Then she remembered that she had said that she would call him "Paul" thefirst time she met him, and she smiled. 

"Searching for me? I don't understand. "

"Of course not! Neither do I! Why should we? The best things in life arethe things we don't--and can't--understand. Is it not so?"

"Perhaps!" doubtfully. She had never thought of it in just that lightbefore, but it might be true. It was human nature to be attracted bymystery. "But you have been looking for me, you say! Since when?--ourrace?" And her laugh rang out on the air with its old mocking rhythm. 

And the Boy felt his blood tingle again at the memory of it. 

"But what did you say, Monsieur Zalenska--pardon me--Paul, I mean, " andshe laughed again, "what did you say as you rode home again?"

The Boy shook his head with affected contrition. 

"Unfit to tell a lady!" he said. 

And the girl laughed again, pleased by his frankness. 

"Vowed eternal vengeance upon my luckless head, I suppose!"

"Oh, not so bad as that, I think, " said Paul, pretending to reflect uponthe matter--"I am sure it was not quite so bad as that!"

"It would hardly have done, would it, to vow what you were not at allsure you would ever be able to fulfil? Take my advice, and never bank a_sou_ upon the move of any woman!"

"You're not a woman, " he laughed in her eyes; "you're just anabbreviation!"

But Opal was not one whit sensitive upon the subject of her height. Notshe!

"Well, some abbreviations are more effective than the words they standfor, " she retorted. "I shall cling to the flattering hope that such maybe my attraction to the reader whose 'only books are woman's looks!'"

"But why did you run away?"

"Just--because!" Then, after a pause, "Why did you follow?"

"I don't know, do you? Just--because, I suppose!"

And then they both laughed again. 

"But I know why you ran. You were afraid!" said Paul. 

Her eyes flashed and there was a fine scorn in her tones. 

"Afraid--of what, pray?"

"Of being caught--too easily! Come, now--weren't you?"

"I wouldn't contradict you for the world, Paul. "

She lingered over his name with a cadence in her tone that made italmost a caress. It thrilled him again as it had from the beginning. 

"But I'll forgive you for running away from me, since I am so fortunateas to be with you now where you can't possibly run very far! Strange, isn't it, how Fate has thrown us together?"

"Very!"

There was a dry sarcasm in the tones, and a mockery in the glance, thattold him she was not blind to his manoeuvres. Their eyes met and theylaughed again. Truly, life just then was exceedingly pleasant for thetwo on the deck of the Lusitania. 

"But I was looking for you before that, Opal--long before that--weeks!"

The girl was truly surprised now and turned to him wonderingly. Then, without question, he told her of his overhearing her at the gardenparty--what a long time ago it seemed!--and his desire, ever since, tomeet her. 

He told her, too, of his hearing her laugh at the theatre that night;but the girl was silent, and said not a word of having seen him there. Confidences were all right for a man, she thought, but a girl did wellto keep some things to herself. 

He did not say that he was deliberately following her to America, butthe girl had her own ideas upon the subject and smiled to herself at thelively development of affairs since that tiresome garden party she hadfound so unbearable. Here was an adventure after her own heart. 

And yet Opal Ledoux had much on her mind just then. The Boy had read thesigns upon her face correctly. She was troubled. 

For a long time they sat together, and looking far out over the vastexpanse of dancing blueness, they spoke of life--and the living of it. And both knew so little of either!

It was a strange talk for the first one--so subtly intimate, with itsflashes of personality and freedom from conventions, that it seemed likea meeting of old friends, rather than of strangers. Some intimacies arelike the oak, long and steady of growth; others spring to full maturityin an hour's time. And these two had bridged the space of years in a fewmoments of converse. They understood each other so well. 

This same idea occurred to them simultaneously, as she looked up at himwith eyes glowing with a quick appreciation of some well-expressed andworthy thought. Something within him stirred to sudden life--somethingthat no one else had ever reached. 

He looked into her eyes and thought he had never looked into the eyes ofa woman before. She smiled--and he was sure it was the first time he hadever seen a woman smile!

"I am wild to be at home again, " she was saying, "fairly crazy forAmerica! How I love her big, broad, majestic acres--the splendid sweepof her meadows--the massive grandeur of her mountain peaks--the glory ofher open skies! You too, I believe, are a wanderer on strange seas. Youcan hardly fail to understand my longing for the homeland!"

"I do understand, Opal. I am on my first visit to your country. Tell meof her--her institutions, her people! Believe me, I am greatlyinterested!"

And he was--in _her_! Nothing else counted at that moment. But the girldid not understand that--then!

For half an hour, perhaps, she lost herself in an eloquent eulogy ofAmerica, while the Boy sat and watched her, catching the import of butlittle that she said, it must be confessed, but drinking in every detailof her expressive countenance, her flashing, lustrous eyes, her red, impulsive lips and rounded form, and her white, slender hands, alwaysemployed in the expression of a thought or as the outlet for somepassing emotion. He caught himself watching for the occasional glimpsesof her small white teeth between the rose of her lips. He saw in hereyes the violet sparks of smouldering fires, kindled by the volcanicheart sometimes throbbing and threatening so close to the surface. Whenthe eruption came!--Fascinated he watched the rise and sweep of herwhite arm. Every line and curve of her body was full of suggestion ofthe ardent and restless and impulsive temperament with which nature hadso lavishly endowed her. She was alive with feeling--alive to thefinger-tips with the joy of life, the fullness of a deep, emotionalnature. 

It occurred to Paul that nature had purposely left her body so small, albeit so beautifully rounded, that it might devote all its powers tothe building therein of a magnificent, flaming soul--that her innernature might always triumph. But Opal had never been especiallyconscious of a soul--scarcely of a body. She had not yet found herself. 

Paul's emotions were in such chaotic rebellion that the thunder of hisheart-beats mingled with the pulse hammering through his brain and madehim for the first time in his life curiously deaf to his own thoughts. 

As she met his eye, expressing more than he realized of the stormwithin, her own fell with a sudden sense of apprehension. She rose andlooked far out over the restless waves with a sudden flush on herdimpled cheek, a subtle excitement in her rapid words. 

"As for our men, Paul, they are only human beings, but mighty with thatstrength of physique and perfect development of mind that makes forpower. They are men of dauntless purpose. They are men of pure thoughtsand lofty ideals. They know what they want and bend every ambition andenergy to its attainment. Of course I speak of the average American--the_type_! The normal American is a born fighter. Yes, that is the key-noteof American supremacy! We never give up! never! In my country, what menwant, they get!"

She raised her hand in a quaint, expressive gesture, and the loosesleeve fell back, leaving her white arm bare. He sprang to his feet, hiseyes glowing. 

"And in my country, what men want, they _take_!" he respondedfiercely--almost brutally and without a second's warning Paul threw hisarms about her and crushed her against his breast. He pressed his lipsmercilessly upon her own, holding them in a kiss that seemed to Opalwould never end. 

"How--how dare you!" she gasped, when at last she escaped his grasp andfaced him in the fury of outraged girlhood. "I--I--hate you!"

"Dare? When one loves one dares anything!" was his husky response. "Ishall have had my kiss and you can never forget that! Never! never!"

And Paul's voice grew exultant. 

Opal had heard of the brutality, the barbarism of passion, but her lifehad flowed along conventional channels as peacefully as a quiet river. She had longed to believe in the fury of love--in that irresistibleattraction between men and women. It appealed to her as it naturallyappeals to all women who are alive with the intensity of life. But shehad _seen_ nothing of it. 

Now she looked living Passion in the face for the first time, and wasappalled--half frightened, half fascinated--by the revelation. That kissseemed to scorch her lips with a fire she had never dreamed of. Withthe universal instinct of shamed womanhood, she pressed her handkerchiefto her lips, rubbing fiercely at the soiled spot. He divined her thoughtand laughed, with a note of exultation that stirred her Southern blood. 

In defiance she raised her eyes and searched his face, seeking somesolution of the mystery of her own heart's strange, rebelliousthrobbing. What could it mean?

Paul took another step toward her, his face softening to tenderness. 

"What is it, Opal?" he breathed. 

"I was--trying--to understand you. "

"I don't understand myself sometimes--certainly not to-day!"

"I thought you were a gentleman!"

(I wonder if Eve didn't say that to Adam in the garden!)

"I have been accustomed to entertain that same idea myself, " he said, "but, after all, what is it to be a gentleman? All men can be gentlewhen they get what they want. That's no test of gentility. It takescircumstances outside the normal to prove man's civilization. When hisdesires meet with opposition the brute comes to the surface--that'sall. "

Another rush of passion lighted his eyes and sought its reflection inhers. Opal turned and fled. 

 * * * * *

In the seclusion of her stateroom Opal faced herself resolutely. Asensation of outrage mingled with a strange sense of guilt. Herresentment seemed to blend with something resembling a strange, fiercejoy. She tried to fight it down, but it would not be conquered. 

Why was he so handsome, so brilliant, this strange foreign fellow whomshe felt intuitively to be more than he claimed to be? What was thesecret of his power that even in the face of this open insult she couldnot be as angry as she knew she should have been?

She looked in the mirror apprehensively. No, there was no sign of thatterrible kiss. And yet she felt as though all the world must have seenhad they looked at her--felt that she was branded forever by the burningtouch of his lips!

CHAPTER VIII

It was not until the dinner hour on the following day that Paul and Opalmet again. One does not require an excuse for keeping to one's stateroomduring an ocean voyage--especially during the first few days--and thegirl, though in excellent health and a capital sailor, kept herselfsecluded. 

She wanted to understand herself and to understand this stranger who wasyet no stranger. For a girl who had looked upon life as she had she feltwoefully unsophisticated. But the Boy? He was certainly not a man of theworld, who through years of lurid experience had learned to look uponall women as his legitimate quarry. If he had been that sort, she toldherself, she would have been on her guard instinctively from the veryfirst. But she knew he was too young for that--far too young--- and hiseyes were frank and clear and open, with no dark secrets behind theircurtained lids. But what was he--and who?

When the day was far spent, she knew that she was no nearer a solutionthan she had been at dawn, so she resolved to join the group at tableand put behind her the futile labor of self-examination. She would not, of course, deign to show any leniency toward the offender--indeed not!She would not vouchsafe one unnecessary word for his edification. 

But she took elaborate care with her toilet, selected her most becominggown and drove her maid into a frenzy by her variations of taste andtemper. 

It was truly a very bewitching Opal who finally descended to the _salon_and joined the party of four masculine incapables who had spent the dayin vain search for amusement. Paul Zalenska rose hastily at her entranceand though she made many attempts to avoid his gaze she was forced atlast to meet it. The electric spark of understanding flashed from eye toeye, and both thrilled in answer to its magnetic call. In the glancethat passed between them was lurking the memory of a kiss. 

Opal blushed faintly. How dare he remember! Why, his very eyes echoedthat triumphant laugh she could not forget. She stole another glance athim. Perhaps she had misjudged him--but--

She turned to respond to the greeting of her father and the other twogentlemen, and soon found herself seated at the table opposite the Boyshe had so recently vowed to shun. Well, she needn't talk to him, thatwas one consolation. Yet she caught herself almost involuntarilylistening for what he would say at this or that turn of the conversationand paying strict--though veiled--attention to his words. 

It was a strange dinner. No one felt at ease. The air was charged withsomething that all felt too tangibly oppressive, yet none could define, save the two--who would not. 

 * * * * *

For Paul the evening was a dismal failure. Try as he would, he could notcatch Opal's eye again, nor secure more than the most meagre replieseven to his direct questions. She was too French to be actuallyimpolite, but she interposed between them those barriers only a womancan raise. She knew that Paul was mad for a word with her; she knew thatshe was tormenting and tantalizing him almost beyond endurance; she felthis impatience in every nerve of her, with that mysterious sixth sensesome women are endowed with, and she rejoiced in her power to make himsuffer. He deserved to suffer, she said. Perhaps he'd have some idea ofthe proper respect due the next girl he met! These foreigners! _MonDieu_! She'd teach him that American girls were a little different fromthe kind they had in his country, where "what men want, they take, " ashe had said. What kind of heathen was he?

And she watched him surreptitiously from under her long lashes with acurious gleam of satisfaction in her eyes. She had always known she hadthis power over men, but she had never cared quite so much about usingit before and had been more annoyed than gratified by the effect herpersonality had had upon her masculine world. 

So she smiled at the Count, she laughed with the Count and made eyesmost shamelessly at the disgusting old gallant till something in hisface warned her that she had reached a point beyond which even heraudacity dared not go. 

Heavens! how the old monster would _devour_ a woman, she thought, with athrill of disgust. There were awful things in his face!

And the Boy glared at de Roannes with unspeakable profanity in his eyes, while the girl laughed to herself and enjoyed it all as girls do enjoythat sort of thing. 

It was delightful, this game of speaking eyes and lips. 

 "Oh, the little more, and how much it is! And the little less, and what worlds away!"

But it was, as she could dimly see, a game that might prove exceedinglydangerous to play, and the Count had spoiled it all, anyway. And acurious flutter in her heart, as she watched the Boy take his punishmentwith as good grace as possible, pled for his pardon until she finallydesisted and bade the little company good night. 

At her departure the men took a turn at bridge, but none of them seemedto care much for the cards that night and the Boy soon broke away. Hewas about to withdraw to his stateroom in chagrin when quiteunexpectedly he found Opal standing by the rail, wrapped in a longcloak. She was gazing far out toward the distant horizon, the light ofstrange, puzzling thoughts in the depths of her eyes. She did not noticehim until he stood by her side, when she turned and faced him defiantly. 

"Opal, " he said, "there was one poet of life and love whom we did notquote in our little discussion to-night. Do you remember Tennyson'swords, "'A man had given all earthly bliss And all his worldly worth for this, To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips?'

Let them plead for me the pardon I know no better way to sue for--orexplain!"

The girl was silent. That little flutter in her heart was pleading forhim, but her head was still rebellious, and she knew not which wouldtriumph. She put one white finger on her lip, and wondered what to sayto him. She would not look into his eyes--they bothered her quite beyondall reason--so she looked at the deck instead, as though hoping to findsome rule of conduct there. 

"I am sorry, Opal, " went on the pleading tones, "that is, sorry that itoffended you. I can't be sorry that I did it--yet!"

After a moment of serious reflection, she looked up at him sternly. 

"It was a very rude thing to do, Paul! No one ever--"

"Don't you suppose I know that, Opal? Did you think that I thought--"

"How was I to know what you thought, Paul? You didn't know me!"

"Oh, but I do. Better than you know yourself!"

She looked up at him quickly, a startled expression in her soft, lustrous eyes. 

"I--almost--believe you do--Paul. "

"Opal!" He paused. She was tempting him again. Didn't she know it?

"Opal, can't--won't you believe in me? Don't you feel that you knowme?"

"I'm not sure that I do--even yet--after--that! Oh, Paul, are you surethat you know yourself?"

"No, not sure, but I'm beginning to!"

She made no reply. After a moment, he said softly, "You haven't saidthat you forgive me, yet, Opal! I know there is no plausible excuse forme, but--listen! I couldn't help it--I truly couldn't! You simply mustforgive me!"

"Couldn't help it?"--Oh, the scorn of her reply. "If there had been anyman in you at all, you could have helped it!"

"No, Opal, you don't understand! It is because I _am_ a man that Icouldn't help it. It doesn't strike you that way now, I know, but--someday you will see it!"

And suddenly she did see it. And she reached out her hand to him, andwhispered, "Then let's forget all about it. I am willing to--if youwill!"

Forget? He would not promise that. He did not wish to forget! And shelooked so pretty and provoking as she said it, that he wanted to--! Buthe only took her hand, and looked his gratitude into her eyes. 

The Count de Roannes came unexpectedly and unobserved upon the climax ofthe little scene, and read into it more significance than it really had. It was not strange, perhaps, that to him this meeting should savour ofclandestine relations and that he should impute to it false motives andimpulses. The Count prided himself upon his tact, and was therefore verycareful to use the most idiomatic English in his conversation. But atthis sudden discovery--for he had not imagined that the acquaintance hadgone beyond his own discernment--he felt the English language quiteinadequate to the occasion, and muttered something under his breath thatsounded remarkably like "_Tison d'enfer!_" as he turned on his heel andmade for his stateroom. 

And the Boy, unconscious and indifferent to all this by-play, had onlytime to press to his lips the little hand she had surrendered to himbefore the crowd was upon them. 

But the waves were singing a Te Deum in his ears, and the skies werebluer in the moonlight than ever sea-skies were before. Paul felt, witha thrill of joy, that he was looking far off into the vaster spaces oflife, with their broader, grander possibilities. He felt that he waswiser, nobler, stronger--nearer his ideal of what a brave man should be. 

CHAPTER IX

When two are young, and at sea, and in love, and the world is beautifuland bright, it is joyous and wonderful to drift thoughtlessly with thetide, and rise and fall with the waves. Thus Paul Zalenska and OpalLedoux spent that most delightful of voyages on the Lusitania. They werenot often alone. They did not need to be. Their intimacy had at onebound reached that point when every word and movement teemed with tendersignificance and suggestion. Their first note had reached such a highmeasure that all the succeeding days followed at concert pitch. It was avoyage of discovery. Each day brought forth revelations of some newtrait of character--each unfolding that particular something which theother had always admired. 

And so their intimacy grew. 

Paul Verdayne saw and smiled. He was glad to see the Boy enjoyinghimself. He knew his chances for that sort of thing were all toopathetically few. 

Mr. Ledoux looked on, troubled and perplexed, but he saw no chance, andindeed no real reason, for interfering. 

The Count de Roannes was irritated, at times even provoked, but he kepthis thoughts to himself, hiding his annoyance, and his secret explosionsof "_Au diable!_" beneath his usual urbanity. 

There was nothing on the surface to indicate more than the customaryfamiliarity of young people thrown together for a time, and yet no onecould fail to realize the undercurrent of emotion below the gaiety ofthe daily ripple of amusement and pleasurable excitement and converse. 

They read together, they exchanged experiences of travel, they discussedliterature, music, art and the stage, with the enthusiastic partisanshipof zealous youth. They talked of life, with its shade and shadow, itsheights and depths of meaning, and altogether became very wellacquainted. Each day anew, they discovered an unusual congeniality inthoughts and opinions. They shared in a large measure the same exaltedoutlook upon life--the same lofty ambitions and dreams. 

And the more Paul learned of the character of this strange girl, themore he felt that she was the one woman in the world for him. To besure, he had known that, subconsciously, the first time he had heard hervoice. Now he knew it by force of reason as well, and he cursed the fatethat denied him the right to declare himself her lover and claim herbefore the world. 

One thing that impressed Paul about the girl was the generous charitywith which she viewed the frailties of human nature, her sincere pityfor all forms of human weakness and defeat, her utter freedom from pettymalice or spite. Rail at life and its hypocrisies, as she often did, sheyet felt the tragedy in its pitiful short-comings, and looked with theeye of real compassion upon its sins and its sinners, condoning as faras possible the fault she must have in her very heart abhorred. 

"We all make mistakes, " she would say, when someone retailed a bit ofscandal. "No human being is perfect, nor within a thousand miles ofperfection. What right then have we to condemn any fellow-creature forhis sins, when we break just as important laws in some other direction?It's common hypocrisy to say, 'We never could have done this terriblething!' and draw our mantle of self-righteousness closely about us lestit become contaminated. Perhaps we couldn't! Why? Because ourtemptations do not happen to lie in that particular direction, that'sall! But we are all law-breakers; not one keeps the Ten Commandments tothe letter--not one! Attack us on our own weak point and see how quicklywe run up the flag of surrender--and perhaps the poor sinner we denouncefor his guilt would scorn just as bitterly to give in to the weaknessthat gets the best of us. _Sin is sin_, and one defect is as hideous asanother. He who breaks one part of the code of morality andrighteousness is as guilty--just exactly as guilty--as he who breaksanother. Isn't the first commandment as binding as the other nine? Andhow many of us do not break that every day we live?"

And there was the whole creed of Opal Ledoux. 

But as intimate as she and the Boy had become, they yet knewcomparatively little of each other's lives. 

Opal guessed that the Boy was of rank, and bound to some definite courseof action for political reasons. This much she had gained from odds andends of conversation. But beyond that, she had no idea who he was, norwhence he came. She would not have been a woman had she not beencurious--and as I have said before, Opal Ledoux was, every inch of herfive feet, a woman--but she never allowed herself to wax inquisitive. 

As for the Boy, he knew there was some evil hovering with threateningwings over the sunshine of the girl's young life--some shadow she triedto forget, but could not put aside--and he grew to associate this shadowwith the continued presence of the French Count, and his intimate air ofauthority. Paul knew not why he should thus connect these two, butnevertheless the impression grew that in some way de Roannes exercised asinister influence over the life of the girl he loved. 

He hated the Count. He resented every look that those dissolute eyesflashed at the girl, and he noticed many. He saw Opal wince sometimes, and then turn pale. Yet she did not resent the offense. 

But Paul did. 

"Such a look from a man like that is the grossest insult to any woman, "he thought, writhing in secret rage. "How can she permit it? If she weremy--my _sister_, I'd shoot him if he once dared to turn his damned eyesin her direction!"

And thus matters stood throughout the brief voyage. Paul and Opal, though conscious of the double barrier between them, tried to forget itsexistence for the moment, and, at intervals, succeeded admirably. 

For were they not in the spring-time of youth, and in love?

And Paul Zalenska talked to this girl as he had never talked to anyonebefore--not even Paul Verdayne!

She brought out the latent best in him. She developed in him a quicknessof perception, a depth of thought and emotion, a facility of speechwhich he had never known. She stimulated every faculty, and gave him newincentive--a new and firmer resolve to aspire and fight for all that heheld dear. 

"I always feel, " he said to Opal, once, "as though my soul stood alwaysat attention, awaiting the inevitable command of Fate! All Nature seemsto tell me at times that there is a purpose in my living, a work for meto do, and I feel so thoroughly _alive_--so ready to listen to the callof duty--and to obey!"

"A dreamer!" she laughed, "as wild a dreamer as I!"

"Why not?" he returned. "All great deeds are born of dreams! It was adreamer who found this America you are so loyal to! And who knows butthat I too may find my world?"

"And a fatalist, too!"

"Why, of course! Everyone is, to a greater or a less extent, thoughmost dare not admit it!"

"But yesterday you said--what _did_ you say, Paul, about the power ofthe human will over environment and fate?"

"I don't remember. That was yesterday. I'm not the same to-day, at all. And to-morrow I may be quite different. "

"Behold the consistency of man. But Fate, Paul--what makes Fate? I havealways been taught to believe that the world is what we make it!"

"And it is true, too, that in a way we may make the world what we will, each creating it anew for himself, after his own pattern--but after all, Opal, that is Fate. For what we _are_, we put into these worlds of ours, and what we are is what our ancestors have made us--and that is what Iunderstand by destiny. "

"Ah, Paul, you have so many noble theories of life. "

His boyish face grew troubled and perplexed. 

"I _thought_ I had, Opal--till I knew you! Now I do not know! Fate seemsto have taken a hand in the game and my theories are cast aside likeworthless cards. I begin to see more clearly that we cannot alwayschoose our paths. "

"Can one ever, Paul?"

"Perhaps not! Once I believed implicitly in the omnipotence of the humanwill to make life just what one wished. Now"--and he searched hereyes--"I know better. "

"Unlucky Opal, to cross your path!" she sighed. "Are you superstitious, Paul? Do you know that opals bring bad luck to those who come beneaththe spell of their influence?"

"I'll risk the bad luck, Opal!"

And she smiled. 

And he thought as he looked at her, how well she understood him! What aninspiration would her love have brought to such a life as he meant histo be! What a Récamier or du Barry she would have made, with her_piquante_, captivating face, her dark, lustrous, compelling eyes, hersignificant gestures, which despite many wayward words and phrases, expressed only lofty and majestic thoughts! Her whole regal littlebody, with its irresistible power and charm, was so far beyond mostwomen! She was life and truth and ambition incarnate! She was the spiritof dreams and the breath of idealism and the very soul of love andlonging. 

Would she feel insulted, he wondered, had she known he had dared tocompare her, even in his own thoughts, with a king's mistress? He meantno insult--far from it! But would she have understood it had she known?

Paul fancied that she would. 

"They may not have been moral, those women, " he thought, "that is, whatthe world calls 'moral' in the present day, but they possessed power, marvellous power, over men and kingdoms. Opal Ledoux was created toexert power--her very breath is full of force and vitality!"

"Yes, " he repeated aloud after due deliberation, "I'll risk the bad luckif you'll be good tome!"

"Am I not?"

"Not always. "

"Well, I will be to-day. See! I have a new book--a sad littlelove-tale, they say--just the thing for two to read at sea, " and with aheightened color she began to read. 

She had pulled her deck-chair forward, until she sat in a flood ofsunshine, and the bright rays, falling on her mass of rich brown hair, heightened all the little glints of red-gold till they looked likeliving bits of flame. Oh the vitality of that hair! the intense glow ofthose eyes in whose depths the flame-like glitter was reflected as thevoice, too, caught fire from the fervid lines!

Soon the passion and charm of the poem cast its spell over them both asthey followed the fate of the unhappy lovers through the heart-ache oftheir evanescent dream. 

Their eyes met with a quick thrill of understanding. 

"It is--Fate, again, " Paul whispered. "Read on, Opal!"

She read and again they looked, and again they understood. 

"I cannot read any more of it, " she faltered, a real fear in her voice. "Let us put it away. "

"No, no!" he pleaded. "It's true--too true. Read on, please, dear!"

"I cannot, Paul. It is too sad!"

"Then let me read it, Opal, and you can listen!"

And he took the book gently from her hand, and read until the sun wassmiling its farewell to the laughing waters. 

 * * * * *

That evening a strong wind was playing havoc with the waves, and thefury of the maddened spray was beating a fierce accompaniment to theirhearts. 

"How I love the wind, " said Opal. "More than all else in Nature I loveit, I think, whatever its mood may be. I never knew why--probablybecause I, too, am capricious and full of changing moods. If it istender and caressing, I respond to its appeal; if it is boisterous andwild, I grow reckless and rash in sympathy; and when it is fierce andpassionate, I feel my blood rush within me. I am certainly a child ofthe wind!"

"Let us hope you will never experience a cyclone, " said the Count, drily. "It might be disastrous!"

"True, it might, " said Opal, and she did not smile. "I echo your kindhope, Count de Roannes. "

And the Boy looked, and listened, and loved!

CHAPTER X

As they left the dinner-table, Opal passed the Boy on her way to herstateroom, and laying her hand upon his arm, looked up into his faceappealingly. He wondered how any man could resist her. 

"Let's put the book away, Paul, and never look at it again!"

"Will you be good to me if I do?" he demanded. 

She considered a moment. "How?" she asked, finally. 

"Come out for just a few moments under the stars, and say good-night. "

"The idea! I can say good-night here and now!" She hesitated. 

"Please, Opal! I seldom see you alone--really alone--and this is ourlast night, you know. To-morrow we shall part--perhaps forever--whoknows? Can you be so cruel as to refuse this one request. Please come!"

His eyes were wooing, her heart fluttering in response. 

"Well--perhaps!" she said. 

"Perhaps?" he echoed, with a smile, then added, teasingly, "Are youafraid?"

"Afraid?--I dare anything--to-night!"

"Then come!"

"I will--if I feel like this when the time comes. But, " and she gave hima tantalizing glance from under her long lashes, "don't expect me!"

Paul tried to look disappointed, but he felt sure that she would come. 

And she did! But not till he had given up all hope, and was pacing thedeck in an agony of impatience. He had felt so certain that he knew hisbeloved! She came, swiftly, silently, almost before he was aware. 

"Well, . . . I'm here, " she said. 

"I see you are, Opal and--thank you. "

He extended his hand, but she clasped hers behind her back and lookedat him defiantly. Truly she was in a most perverse mood!

"Aren't we haughty!" he laughed. 

"No, I'm not; I am--angry!"

"With me?"

"No!--not you. "

"Whom, then?"

"With--myself!" And she stamped her tiny foot imperiously. 

Paul was delighted. "Poor child, " he said. "What have you done that youare so sorry?"

"I'm not sorry! That's why I'm angry! If I were only a bit sorry, I'dhave some self-respect!"

Paul looked at her deliberately, taking in every little detail of herappearance, his eyes full of admiration. Then he added, with an air offinality, "But _I_ respect you!"

She softened, and laid her hand on his arm. Paul instantly tookpossession of it. 

"Do you really?" she asked, searching his face, almost wistfully. "Agirl who will do . . . What I am doing to-night!"

"But what _are_ you doing, Opal?" he asked in the most innocentsurprise. "Merely keeping a wakeful man company beneath the stars!"

"Is that . . . All?"

"All . . . _now!_"

They stood silently for a minute, hand still in hand, looking far outover the moonlit waters, each conscious of the trend of the other'sthoughts--the beating of the other's heart. The deck was deserted by allsave their two selves--they two alone in the big starlit universe. Atlast she spoke. 

"This is interesting, isn't it?"

"Of course!--holding your hand!"

She snatched it from him. "I forgot you had it, " she said. 

"Forget again!"

"No, I won't!. . . Is it always interesting?. . . Holding a girl's hand?"

"It depends upon the girl, I suppose! I was enjoying it immensely justthen. "

He took her hand again. 

And again that perilously sweet silence fell between them. 

At last, "Promise me, Paul!" she said. 

"I will--what is it?"

"Promise me to forget anything I may say or do to-night . . . Not to thinkhard of me, however rashly I may act! I'm not accountable, really! I'mliable to say . . . Anything! I feel it in my blood!"

"I understand, Opal! See! the winds are boisterous and unruly enough. You may be as rash and reckless as you will!"

Suddenly the wind blew her against his breast. The perfume of her hair, and all the delicious nearness of her, intoxicated him. He laughed asoft, caressing little lover-laugh, and raising her face to his, kissedher lips easily, naturally, as though he had the right. She struggled, helplessly, as he held her closely to him, and would not let her go. 

"You are a--" She bit her lip, and choked back the offensive word. 

"A--what? Say it, Opal!"

"A--a--_brute_! There! let me go!"

But he only held her closer and laughed again softly, till shewhispered, "I didn't--quite--_mean_ that, you know!"

"Of course you didn't!"

She drew away from him and pointed her finger at him accusingly, hereyes full of reproof. 

"But--you _said_ you wouldn't! You promised!"

"Wouldn't what?"

"Wouldn't do--what you did--again!"

"Did I?" insinuatingly. 

"How dare you ask that? You----"

"'Brute' again? Quite like old married folk!"

"Old married folk? They never kiss!"

"Don't they?"

"Not each other!. . . Other people's husbands or wives!"

"Is that it?"

"Surely----

 'Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, He would have written sonnets all his life?'

O no! not he!"

"I'm learning many new things, Opal! Let's play we're married, then--tosomeone else!"

"But--haven't you any conscience at all?"

"Conscience?--what a question! Of course I have!"

"You certainly aren't using it to-night!"

"I'm too busy! Kiss me!"

"The very idea!"

"Please!"

"Certainly not!"

"Then let me kiss you!"

_"No!!!"_

"Why not?--Don't you like to be loved?"

And his arms closed around her, and his lips found hers again, and heldthem. 

At last, "Silly Boy!"

"Why?"

"Oh! to make such a terrible fuss about something he doesn't reallywant, and will be sorry he has after he gets it!"

And Paul asked her wickedly, what foolish boy she was talking about now?_He_ knew what he really wanted--always--and was not sorry when he hadit. Not he! He was sorry only for the good things he had let slip, neverfor those he had taken!

"But--do let me go, Paul! I don't belong to you!"

"Yes you do--for a little while!" He held her close. 

Belong to him! How she thrilled at the thought! Was this what it meantto be--loved? And _did_ she belong to him--if only, as he said, for alittle while? She certainly didn't belong to herself! Whatever thismadness that had suddenly taken possession of her, it was stronger thanherself. She couldn't control it--she didn't even want to! At allevents, she was _living_ to-night! Her blood was rushing madly throughher body. She was deliciously, thoroughly alive!

"Paul!--are you listening?"

"Yes, dear!" the answer strangely muffled. 

And then she purred in his ear, all the time caressing his cheek withher small white fingers: "You see, Paul, I knew I had made some sort ofimpression upon you. I must have done so or you wouldn't have--donethat! But any girl can make an impression on shipboard, and an affair atsea is always so--evanescent, that no one expects it to last more thana week. I don't want to make such a transitory impression upon you, Paul. I wanted you to remember me longer. I wanted--oh, I wanted to giveyou something to remember that was just a little bit different thanother girls had given you--some distinct impression that must lingerwith you--always--always! I'm not like other women! Do you see, Paul? Itwas all sheer vanity. I wanted you to remember!"

"And did you think I could forget?"

"Of course! All men forget a kiss as soon as their lips cease tingling!"

Paul laughed. "Wise girl! Who taught you so much? Come, confess!"

"Oh, I've known _you_ a whole week, Paul, and you----"

But their lips met again and the sentence was never finished. 

At last she put her hands on each side of his face and looked up intohis eyes. 

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Paul?"

"Of course not!"

"Of course you are!"

"You misunderstood me!--I said _'Not'_! But why? Are you ashamed ofme?"

"I ought to be, oughtn't I? But--I don't believe you can help it!"

His lips crushed hers again, fiercely. "I can't, Opal--I can't!"

She turned away her head, but he buried his face in her neck, kissingthe soft flesh again and again. 

"Such a slip of a girl!" Paul murmured in her ear, when he again foundhis voice. "Such a tiny, little girl! I am almost afraid you will vanishif I don't hold you tight!"

Opal was thoroughly aroused now--no longer merely passive--quitesatisfactorily responsive. 

"I won't, Paul! I won't! But hold me closer, closer! Crush this terribleache out of my heart if you can, Paul!"

There were tears in her voice. He clasped her to him and felt her heartthrobbing out its pain against its own, as he whispered, "Opal, am I abrute?"

"N-o-o-o-o!" A pause. At last, "Let me go now, Paul! This is sheerinsanity!"

But he made no move to release her until she looked up into his eyes inan agony of appeal, and pleaded, "Please, Paul!"

"Are you sure you want to go?"

"No, I'm not sure of that, but I'm quite sure that I _ought_ to go! Imust! I must!"

And Paul released her. Where was this madness carrying them? Was heacting the part of the man he meant to be, or of a cad--an unprincipledbounder? He did not know. He only knew he wanted to kiss her--_kiss_her. . . . 

She turned on him in a sudden flash of indignation. "Why have you suchpower over me?" she demanded. 

"What power over you, Opal!"

"What's the use of dodging the truth, you professor of honesty? You makeme do things we both know I'll be sorry for all the rest of my life. _Why_ do you do it?"

Her eyes blazed with a real anger that made her _piquante_ face morealluring than ever to the eyes of the infatuated Boy who watched her. Hewas fighting desperately for self-control, but if she should look athim as she had looked sometimes--!

"I can't understand it!" she exclaimed. "I always knew I was capable ofbeing foolish--wicked, perhaps--for a _grande passion_. I could forgivemyself that, I think! But for a mere caprice--a _penchant_ like this!Oh, Paul! what can you think of me?"

His voice was hoarse--heavy with emotion. 

"Think of you, Opal? I am sure you must know what I think. I've neverhad an opportunity to tell you--in so many words--but you must have seenwhat I have certainly taken no pains to conceal. Shall I try to tellyou, Opal?"

"No, no! I don't want to hear a word--not a word! Do you understand? Iforbid you!"

Paul bowed deferentially. She laughed nervously at the humility in hisobeisance. 

"Don't be ridiculous!" she commanded. "This is growing too melodramatic, and I hate a scene. But, really, Paul, you mustn't--simply mustn't!There are reasons--conditions--and--you must not tell me, and I mustnot, _will_ not listen!"

"I mustn't make love to you, you mean?"

"I mean . . . Just that!"

"Why not?"

"Never mind the 'why. ' There are plenty of good and sufficient reasonsthat I might give if I chose, but--I don't choose! The only reason thatyou need to know is--that I forbid you!"

She turned away with that regal air of hers that made one forget herchild-like stature. 

"Are you going, Opal?"

"Yes!--what did I come out here for? I can't remember. Do you know?"

"To wish me good-night, of course! And you haven't done it!"

She looked back over her shoulder, a mocking laugh in those inscrutableeyes. Then she turned and held out both hands to him. 

"Good-night, Paul, good-night!. . . You seem able to do as you please withme, in spite of--everything--and I just want to stay in your armsforever--forever . . . "

Paul caught her to him, and their lips melted in a clinging kiss. 

At last she drew away from his embrace. 

"The glitter of the moonlight and the music of the wind-maddened wavesmust have gone to my brain!" She laughed merrily, pulled his face downto hers for a last swift kiss, and ran from him before he could detainher. 

 * * * * *

The next morning they met for a brief moment alone. 

Opal shook hands with the Boy in her most perfunctory manner. 

Paul, after a moment's silent contemplation of her troubled face, bentover her, saying, "Have I offended you, Opal? Are you angry with me?"

She opened her eyes wide and asked with the utmost innocence "For what?"

Paul was disconcerted. "Last night!" he said faintly. 

She colored, painfully. 

"No, Paul, listen! I don't blame you a bit!--not a bit! A man would be adownright fool not to take--what he wanted---- But if you want tobe--friends with me, you'll just forget all about--last night--or at anyrate, ignore it, and never refer to it again. "

He extended his hand, and she placed hers in it for the briefestpossible instant. 

And then their _tête-à-tête_ was interrupted, and they sat down fortheir last breakfast at sea. 

Opal Ledoux was not visible again until the Lusitania docked in NewYork, when she waved her _companion de voyage_ a smiling but none theless reluctant _au revoir_!

But Paul was too far away to see the tears in her eyes, and onlyremembered the smile. 

CHAPTER XI

New York's majestic greatness and ceaseless, tireless activity speedilyengrossed the Boy and opened his eager eyes to a wider horizon than hehad yet known. There was a new influence in the whir and hum of thismetropolis of the Western world that set the wheels of thought to a morerapid motion, and keyed his soul to its highest tension. 

It was not until his first letter from the homeland had come across thewaters that he paused to wonder what the new factor in his life meantfor his future. He had not allowed his reason to assert itself until theforce of circumstances demanded that he look his soul in the face, andlearn whither he was drifting. Paul was no coward, but he quailed beforethe ominous clouds that threatened the happiness of himself and the girlhe loved. 

For now he knew that he loved Opal Ledoux. It was Fate. He had guessedit at the first sound of her voice; he had felt it at the first glanceof her eye; and he had known it beyond the peradventure of a doubt atthe first touch of her lips. 

Yet this letter from his kingdom was full of suggestions of duties to bedone, of responsibilities to be assumed, of good still to be brought outof much that was petty and low, and of helpless, miserable human beingswho were so soon to be dependent upon him. 

"I will make my people happy, " he thought. "Happiness is the birthrightof every man--be he peasant or monarch. " And then the thought came tohim, how could he ever succeed in making them truly happy, when hehimself had so sorely missed the way! There was only one thing to do, heknew that--both for Opal's sake and for his own--and that was to go faraway, and never see the face again that had bewitched him so. 

Perhaps, if he did this, he might forget the experience that was, afterall, only an episode in a man's life and--other men forget! He mightlearn to be calmly happy and contented with his Princess. It was onlynatural for a young man to make love to a pretty girl, he thought, andwhy should he be any exception? He had taken the good the gods provided, as any live man would--now he could go his way, as other men did, and--forget! Why not? And yet the mere thought of it cast such a gloomover his spirits that he knew in his heart his philosophic attempt todeceive himself was futile and vain. He might run away, ofcourse--though it was hardly like him to do that--but he would scarcelybe able to forget. 

And then Verdayne joined him with an open note in his hand--a formalinvitation from Gilbert Ledoux for them to dine with him in his FifthAvenue house on the following evening. He wished his family to meet thefriends who had so pleasantly attracted himself and his daughter onshipboard. 

Was it strange how speedily the Boy's resolutions vanished? Run away!Not he!

"Accept the invitation, Father Paul, by all means!"

 * * * * *

It was a cordial party in which Paul Verdayne and his young companionfound themselves on the following evening--a simple family gathering, graciously presided over by Opal's stepmother. 

Gilbert Ledoux's wife was one of those fashion-plate women who strikeone as too artificial to be considered as more than half human. Youwonder if they have also a false set of emotions to replace those theywore out in their youth--_c'est à dire_ if they ever had any! Paulsmiled at the thought that Mr. Ledoux need have no anxiety over thevirtue of his second wife--whatever merry dance the first might have ledhim!

Opal was not present when the gentlemen were announced, and the bevy ofaunts and uncles and cousins were expressing much impatience for herpresence--which Paul Zalenska echoed fervently in his heart. It wastruly pleasant--this warm blood-interest of kinship. He liked theAmerican clannishness, and he sighed to think of the utter lack offamily affection in his own life. 

The drawing-room, where they were received, was furnished in good taste, the Boy thought. The French touch was very prominent--the blend of colorseemed to speak to him of Opal. Yes, he liked the room. The effect grewon one with the charm of the real home atmosphere that a dwelling placeshould have. But he wasn't so much interested in that, after all! Infact, it was rather unsatisfactory--without Opal! These people were_her_ people and, of course, of more than ordinary interest to him onher account, but still--

And at last, when the Boy was beginning to acknowledge himself slightlybored, and to resent the familiar footing on which he could see theCount de Roannes already stood in the family circle, Opal entered, andthe gloomy, wearisome atmosphere seemed suddenly flooded with sunlight. 

She came in from the street, unconventionally removing her hat andgloves as she entered. 

"Where have you been so long, Opal?" asked Mrs. Ledoux, withconsiderable anxiety. 

"At the Colony Club, _ma mère_--I read a paper!"

"_Mon Dieu!_" put in the Count, in an amused tone. "On what subject?"

"On 'The Modern Ethical Viewpoint, ' _Comte_, " she answered, nodding herlittle head sagely. "It was very convincing! In fact, I exploded a bombin the camp that will give them all something sensational to talk abouttill--till--the next scandal!"

The Count gave a low chuckle of appreciation, while Mr. Ledoux asked, seriously, "But to what purpose, daughter?"

"Why, papa, don't you know? I had to teach Mrs. Stuyvesant Moore, Mrs. Sanford Wyckoff, and several other old ladies how to be good!"

And in the general laugh that followed, she added, under her breath, "Oh, the irony of life!"

Paul watched her in a fever of boyish jealousy as she passed through thefamily circle, bestowing her kisses left and right with impartial favor. She made the rounds slowly, conscientiously, and then, with an air ofsupreme indifference, moved to the Boy's side. 

He leaned over her. 

"Where are my kisses?" he asked softly. 

She clasped her hands behind her back, child-fashion, and looked up athim, a coquettish daring in her eyes. 

"Where did you put them last?" she demanded. 

"You ought to know!"

"True--I ought. But, as a matter of fact, I haven't the slightest idea. It depends altogether upon what girl you saw last. "

"If you think that of me----"

"What else can I think? Our first meeting did not leave much room forconjecture. And, of course----"

"Opal! You have just time to dress for dinner! And the Count is veryanxious to see the new orchid, you know!"

There was a suggestion of reproof in Mrs. Ledoux's voice. The girl'sface clouded as she turned away in response to the summons. But shethrew the Boy a challenge over her shoulder--a hint of that mischiefthat always seemed to lurk in the corner of her eye. 

Paul bit his lip. He was not a boy to be played with, as Opal Ledouxwould find out. And he sulked in a corner, refusing to be conciliated, until at last she re-entered the room, leaning on the Count's"venerable" arm. She had doubtless been showing him the orchid. Humph!What did that old reprobate know--or care--about orchids?

 "A primrose by the river's brim, A yellow primrose was to him, And nothing more. "

As the evening passed, there came to the Boy no further opportunity tospeak to Opal alone. She not only avoided him herself, but the entireparty seemed to have entered into a conspiracy to keep him from her. Itroused all the fight in his Slavic blood, and he determined not to beoutwitted by any such high-handed proceeding. He crossed the room andboldly broke into the conversation of the group in which she stood. 

"Miss Ledoux, " he said, "pardon me, but as we are about to leave, Imust remind you of your promise to show me the new orchid. I am veryfond of orchids. May I not see it now?"

Opal had made no such promise, but as she looked up at him with aninstinctive denial, she met his eyes with an expression in their depthsshe dared not battle. There was no knowing what this impetuous Boy mightsay or do, if goaded too far. 

"Please pardon my forgetfulness, " she said, with a propitiating smile, as she took his arm. "We will go and see it. "

And the Boy smiled. He had not found his opportunity--he had made one!

With a malicious smile on his thin, wicked lips the Count de Roanneswatched them as they moved across the room toward the conservatory--thispair so finely matched that all must needs admire. 

It was rather amusing in _les enfants_, he told Ledoux, this "_Paul etVirginie_" episode. Somewhat _bourgeois_, of course--but harmless, hehoped. This with an expressive sneer. But--_mon Dieu!_--and there was asinister gleam in his evil eyes--it mustn't go too far! The girl was acaptivating little witch--the old father winced at the significance inthe tone--and she must have her fling! He rather admired her the morefor her _diablerie_--but she must be careful!

But he need not have feared to-night. Paul Zalenska's triumph wasshort-lived. When once inside the conservatory, the girl turned andfaced him, indignantly. 

"What an utterly shameless thing to do!" she exclaimed. 

"Why?" he demanded. "You were not treating me with due respect and'self-preservation is the first law of nature, ' you know. I am so littleaccustomed to being--snubbed, that I don't take it a bit kindly!"

"I did not snub you, " she said, "at least, not intentionally. But ofcourse my friends have prior claims on my time and attention. I can'tput them aside for a mere stranger. "

"A stranger?" he echoed. "Then you mean----"

"I mean what?"

"To ignore our former--acquaintance--altogether?"

"I do mean just that! One has many desperate flirtations on board ship, but one isn't in any way bound to remember them. It is notalways--convenient. You may have foolishly remembered. Ihave--forgotten!"

"You have not forgotten. I say you have not, Opal. "

"We use surnames in society, Monsieur Zalenska?"

"Opal!" appealingly. 

"Why such emotion, Monsieur?" mockingly. 

The Boy was taken aback for a moment, but he met her eyes bravely. 

"Why? Because I love you, Opal, and in your heart you know it!"

"Why?"

"Why do I love you? Because I can't help it! Who knows, really, whyanything happens or does not happen in this topsy-turvy world?"

The girl looked at him steadily for a moment, and then spokeindifferently, almost lightly. 

"Have you looked at the orchid you wished so much to see, MonsieurZalenska? Mamma is very proud of it!"

"Opal!"

But she went on, heedless of his interruption, "Because, if you haven't, you must look at it hastily--you have wasted some time quite foolishlyalready--and I have promised to join the Count in a few moments, and--"

"Very well. I understand, Opal!" Paul stiffened. "I will relieve you ofmy presence. But don't think you will always escape so easily because Iyield now. You have not meant all you have said to me to-night, and Iknow it as well as you do. You have tried to play with me--"

"I beg your pardon!"

"You knew the tiger was in my blood--you couldn't help but know it!--andyet you deliberately awakened him!" She gave him a startled glance, hereyes appealing for mercy, but he went on relentlessly. "Yes, after themanner of women since the world began, you lured him on and on! Is it myfault--or yours--if he devour us both?"

Paul Verdayne, strangely restless and ill at ease, was passing beneaththe window and thus became an involuntary listener to these mad wordsfrom the lips of his young friend. 

Straightway there rose to his mental vision a picture--never very farremoved--a picture of a luxurious room in a distant Swiss hotel, theforemost figure in which was the slender form of a royally fascinatingwoman, reclining with reckless abandon upon a magnificent tiger skin, stretched before the fire. He saw her lavishing her caresses upon theinanimate head. He heard her purr once more in the vibrant, appealingtones so like the Boy's. 

The stately Englishman passed his hand over his eyes to shut out themaddening vision, with its ever-fresh pangs of poignant anguish, itspersistent, unconquered and unconquerable despair!

"God help the Boy!" he prayed, as he strolled on into the solitude ofthe moonlit night. "No one else can! It is the call of the blood--therelentless lure of his heritage! From it there is no escape, as againstit there is no appeal. It is the mad blood of youth, quickened andintensified in the flame of inherited desire. I cannot save him!"

And then, with a sudden flood of tender, passionate, sacred memories, headded in his heart, "And I would not, if I could!"

CHAPTER XII

Paul Verdayne had many acquaintances and friends in New York, and muchagainst their inclination he and the Boy soon found themselves absorbedin the whirl of frivolities. They were not very favorably impressed. Itwas all too extravagant for their Old World tastes--not too magnificent, for they both loved splendor--but it shouted its cost too loudly intheir ears, and grated on their nerves and shocked their aestheticsense. 

The Boy was a favorite everywhere, even more so, perhaps, than inLondon. American society saw no mystery about him, and would not havecared if it had. If his face seemed somewhat familiar, as it often hadto Opal Ledoux, no one puzzled his brains over it or searched themagazines to place it. New York accepted him, as it accepts alldistinguished foreigners who have no craving for the limelight ofpublicity, for his face value, and enjoyed him thoroughly. Women pettedhim, because he was so witty and chivalrous and entertaining, and alwaysas exquisitely well-groomed as any belle among them; men were attractedto him because he had ideas and knew how to express them. He was worthtalking to and worth listening to. He had formed opinions of his ownupon most subjects. He had thought for himself and had the courage ofhis convictions, and Americans like that. 

Naturally enough, before many days, at a fashionable ball at the Plazahe came into contact with Opal Ledoux again. 

It was a new experience, this, to see the girl he loved surrounded bythe admiration and attention of other men. In his own infatuation he hadnot realized that most men would be affected by her as he was, wouldexperience the same maddening impulses--the same longing--the samethirst for possession of her. Now the fact came home to him with theforce of an electric shock. He could not endure the burning glances ofadmiration that he saw constantly directed toward her. What right hadother men to devour her with their eyes?

He hastened to meet her. She greeted him politely but coldly, expressingsome perfunctory regret when he asked for a dance, and showing him thather card was already filled. And then her partner claimed her, and shewent away on his arm, smiling up into his face in a way she had thatdrove men wild for her. "The wicked little witch!" Paul thought. "Wouldshe make eyes at every man like that? Dare she?"

A moment after, he heard her name, and instantly was all attention. Thetwo men just behind him were discussing her rather freely--far toofreely for the time and the place--and the girl, in Paul's estimation. He listened eagerly. 

"Bold little devil, that Ledoux girl!" said one. "God! how she isplaying her little game to-night! They say she is going to marry thatold French Count, de Roannes! That's the fellow over there, watching herwith the cat's eyes. I guess he thinks she means to have her flingfirst--and I guess she thinks so too! As usual, it's the spectator whosees the best of the game. What a curious girl she is--a livingparadox!"

"How's that?"

"Spanish, you know. Ought to have black hair instead of red--black eyesinstead of--well, chestnut about expresses the color of hers. I callthem witch's eyes, they're so full of fire and--the devil!"

"She's French, too, isn't she? That accounts for the eyes. The _beautédu diable_, hers is! Couldn't she make a heaven for a man if shewould--or a hell?"

"Yes, it's in her! She's doomed, you know! Her grandmothers before herwere bad women--regular witches, they say, with a good, big streak ofyellow. Couldn't keep their heads on their shoulders--couldn't befaithful to any one man. Don't know as they tried!"

"I'll bet they made it interesting for the fellow while it did last, anyway! But this one will never be happy. She has a tragedy in her face, if ever a woman had. But she's a man's woman, all right, and she'd makelife worth living if a fellow had any red blood in him. She's one ofthose women who are born for nothing else in the world but to love, andbe loved. Can't you shoot the Count?"

"The Count!--Hell! He won't be considered at all after a little! She'llfind plenty of men glad to wake the devil in her--just to keep her fromyawning! But she's not very tractable even now, though her sins all lieahead of her! She's altogether too cool on the surface for her make-up, but--well, full of suggestion, and one feels a volcano surging andsteaming just below the mask she wears, and has an insane desire to wakeit up! That kind of woman simply can't help it. "

A third voice broke in on the conversation--an older voice--the voice ofa man who had lived and observed much. 

"I saw her often as a child, " he said, "a perilously wilful child, determined upon her own way, and possessed of her own fancies aboutthis, that, and the other, which were seldom, if ever, the ideas ofanyone else. There was always plenty of excitement where she was--alwaysthat same disturbing air! Even with her pigtails and pinafores, onecould see the woman in her eyes. But she was a provoking littlecreature, always dreaming of impossible romances. Her father had hishands full. "

"As her husband will have, poor devil! If he's man enough to hold her, all right. If he is not, " with a significant shrug of the shoulders, "it's his own lookout!"

"That old French _roué_ hold her? You're dreaming! She won't be faithfulto him a week--if he has a handsome valet, or a half-way manly groom!How could she?" And they laughed coarsely. 

The Boy gave them a look that should have annihilated all three, butthey weren't noticing the Boy. He could have throttled them! How daredsuch lips as these pollute his darling's name! And yet these weresociety men--they could dance with her, clasp her to them, and look intothose "witch eyes"--oh, the ignominy of it!

He looked across at Opal. How beautiful she was in her pale green gown, her white shoulders and arms glistening beneath the electric light withthe sheen of polished marble, her red-brown hair glowing with its fierylure, while even across the room her eyes sparkled like diamonds, lighting up her whole face. She was certainly enjoying herself--thisCirce who had tempted him across the seas. She seemed possessed of thevery spirit of mischief--and Paul forgot himself. 

The orchestra was playing a Strauss waltz--it fired his blood. He walkedacross the room with his masterful, authoritative air--the manner of aman born to command. "Miss Ledoux, " he said, and the crowd around herinstinctively made way for him, "this is our waltz, I believe!" andwhirled her away before she could answer. 

Ah! it was delicious, that waltz! In perfect rhythm they clung together, gliding about the polished floor, her bare shoulder pressing his arm, her head with its bewildering perfume so near his lips, their heartsthrobbing fiercely in the ecstasy of their nearness--which was Love. 

Oh to go on forever! forever!

The sweet cadence of the music died away, and they looked into eachother's eyes, startled. 

"You seem to be acquiring the habit, " she pouted, but her lips quivered, and in response he whispered in her ear, "Whose waltz was it, sweetheart?"

"I don't know, Paul--nor care!"

That was enough. 

They left the room together. 

CHAPTER XIII

In a secluded corner adjoining the ballroom, Paul and Opal stood hand inhand, conscious only of being together, while their two hearts beat atumultuous acknowledgment of that =world-old= power whose name, inwhatever guise it comes to us, is Love!

"I said I wouldn't, Paul!" at last she said. 

"Wouldn't what?"

"See you again--like this!"

Paul smiled tenderly. 

"My darling, " he whispered, "what enchantment have you cast over me thatall my resolutions to give you up fade away at the first glimpse of yourface? I resolve to be brave and remember my duty--until I see you--andthen I forget everything but you--I want nothing but you!"

"What do you want with me, Paul?"

"Opal!" he cried impetuously. "After seeing these gay Lotharios makingeyes at you all the evening, can you ask me that? I want to take youaway and hide you from every other man's sight--that's what I want! Itdrives me crazy to see them look at you that way! But you have such away of keeping a fellow at arm's length when you want to, " he went on, ruefully, "in spite of the magic call of your whole temptingpersonality. You know '_Die Walküre_, ' don't you?--but of course you do. If I believed in the theory of reincarnation, I should feel sure thatyou were Brünhilde herself, surrounded by the wall of fire!"

"I wish I were! I wish every woman had some such infallible way of_proving_ every man who seeks her!"

"You have, Opal! You have your own womanly instincts--every woman'simpassable wall of fire, if she will only hide behind them. _You_ couldnever love unworthily!"

"But, Paul, don't you know? Haven't they told you? I shall probablymarry the Count de Roannes!"

Paul was astounded. 

"Opal! No! No! Not that, surely not that! I heard it, yes--a moment ago. But I could not believe it. The idea was too horrible. It could not betrue!"

"But it is true, Paul! It is all too true!"

"It is a crime, " he fairly groaned. 

She shrank from him. "Don't say that, Paul!"

"But you know it is true! Opal, just think! If you give your sweet selfto him--and that is all you can give him, as you and I know--if you giveyourself to him, I say, I--I shall go mad!"

"Yet women have loved him, " she began, bravely, attempting to defendherself. "Women--some kinds of women--really love him now. He has apower of--compelling--love--even yet!"

"And such women, " Paul cried hoarsely, "are more to be honored than youif you consent to become his property with no love in your heart! Don'tplead extenuating circumstances. There can be no extenuatingcircumstances in all the world for such a thing. "

She winced as though he had struck her, for she knew in her heart thatwhat he said was true, brutally true. The Boy was only voicing her ownsentiments--the theory to which she had always so firmly clung. 

As Paul paused, a sudden realization of his own future overwhelmed himand locked his lips. He smiled sadly. Who was he that he should talklike that? Was not he, too, pleading extenuating circumstances? True, hewas a man and she was a woman, and the world has two distinctstandards--but--no less than she--he was selling himself for gain. 

"Paul, Paul! I'm afraid you don't understand! It isn't _money_. Surelyyou don't think that! It isn't money--it is honor--_honor_, do you hear?My dead mother's honor, and my father's breaking heart!"

The secret was out, at last. This, then, was the shadow that had castits gloom over the family ever since he had come in contact with them. It was even worse than he had thought. That she--the lovely Opal--shouldhave to sacrifice her own honor to save her mother's!

Honor! honor! how many crimes are committed in thy name!

"Tell me about it, " he said sympathetically. 

And she told him, sparing herself details, as far as possible, of thestorm of scandal about to burst upon the family--a storm from which onlythe sacrifice of herself could save the family name of Ledoux, and hermother's memory. It might, or might not, be true, but the Count deRoannes claimed to be able--and ready--to bring proof. And, if it weretrue, she was not a Ledoux at all, and her father was not her father atall, except in name. No breath of ill-fame had ever reached her mother'sname before. They had thought she had happily escaped the curse of hermother before her. But the Count claimed to know, and--well, he wantedher--Opal--and, of course, it _was_ possible, and of course he would doanything to protect the good name of his wife, if Opal became his wife, and----

"So, you see, Paul--in the end, I shall have to--submit!"

She had not told it at all well, she thought, but Paul little cared howthe story was told. 

"I do not see it that way at all, Opal. It seems to me--well, diabolical, and may God help you, dear girl, when you, with yourhigh-keyed sensitive nature, first wake to the infamy of it! I have noright to interfere--no right at all. Not even my love for you, which isstronger than myself, gives me that right. For I am betrothed! I tellyou this because I see where my folly has led us. There is only onething to do. We must part--and at once. I am sorry"--then he thought ofthat first meeting on board the liner, "no, I am _not_ sorry we met! Ishall never be that! But I am going to be a man. I am going to do myduty. Help me, Opal--help me!"

It was the old appeal of the man to the helpmeet God had created forhim, and the woman in her responded. 

"Paul, I will!" and her little fingers closed over his. 

"Of course he loves you--in his way, but----"

"Don't, Paul, don't! He has never once pretended that--he has been toowise. "

"He will break your spirit, dear--it's his nature. And then he willbreak your heart!"

She raised her head, defiantly. 

"Break my spirit, Paul? He could not. And as for my heart--that willnever be his to break!"

Their eyes met with the old understanding that needs no words. Then shepointed to the heavens. 

"See the stars, Paul, smiling down so calmly. How can they when heartsare aching? When I was a child, I loved the stars. I fancied, too, thatthey loved me, and I would run out under their watchful eyes, singingfor very joy, sure they were guiding my life and that some day I wouldbe happy, gloriously happy. Somehow, Paul, I always expected to behappy--always!--till now! Now the stars seem to mock me. I must havebeen born under a baleful conjunction, I guess. Oh, I told you, Paul, that Opals were unlucky. I warned you--didn't I warn you? I may havetempted you, too, but--I didn't mean to do it!"

"Bless your dear heart, girl, you weren't to blame!"

"But you said--that night--about the tiger----"

"Forgive me, Opal, I was not myself. I was--excited. I didn't meanthat. "

After a moment, she said, musingly, "It is just as I said, Paul. I wasborn to go to the devil, so it is well--well for you, I mean--andperhaps for me--that you and I cannot marry. " He shook his head, but shewent on, unheeding. "Paul, if I am destined to be a disgrace tosomeone--and they say I am--I'd rather bring reproach upon his name thanon yours!"

"But why marry at all, if you feel like that? Why, it's--it's damnable!"

"Don't you see, Paul, I am foreordained to evil--marked a bad woman fromthe cradle! Marriage is the only salvation, you know, for girls with myinheritance. It's the sanctuary that keeps a woman good and 'happy everafter. '"

"It would be more apt, in my opinion, to drive one to forbidden wine! Amarriage like that, I mean--for one like you. "

"But at least a married woman has a _name_--whatever she may do. She's--protected. She isn't----"

But Paul would hear no more. 

"Opal, _we_ were made for each other from the beginning--surely we were. Some imp has slipped into the scheme of things somewhere and turned itupside down. "

He paused. She looked up searchingly into his eyes. 

"Paul, do you love me?"

"Yes, dearest!"

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as I am of my own existence! With all my heart, Opal--with allmy soul!"

"Then we mustn't see each other any more!"

"Not any more. You are right, Opal, not any more!"

"But what shall we do, Paul? We shall be sure to meet often. You expectto stay the summer through, do you not? And we are not going to NewOrleans for several weeks yet--and then?"

"We are going West, Father Paul and I--out on the prairies to rough itfor a while. We were going before long, anyway, and a few weeks sooneror later won't make any difference. And then--home, back over the seaagain, to face life, to work, to try to be--strong, I suppose. "

Paul paused and looked at her passionately. 

"Why are you so alluring to-night, Opal?"

Her whole body quivered, caught fire from the flame in his eyes. Whatwas there about this man that made her always so conscious she was awoman? Why could she never be calm in his presence, but was always sofated to _feel, feel, feel!_

Her voice trembled as she looked up at him and answered, "Am I wicked, Paul? I wanted to be happy to-night--just for to-night! I wanted toforget the fate that was staring me so relentlessly in the face. But--Icouldn't, Paul!"

Then she glanced through the curtains into the ballroom and shuddered. 

"The Count is looking for me, " she said. The Boy winced, and she went onrapidly, excitedly. "We must part. As well now as any time, I suppose, since it has to be. But first, Paul, let me say it once--just once--_Ilove you!_"

He snatched her to him--God! that any one else should ever have theright!

"And I--worship you, Opal! Even that seems a weak word, to-night. But--you understand, don't you? I didn't know at sea whether it was loveor what it was that had seized me as nothing ever had before. But I knownow! And listen, Opal--this isn't a vow, nor anything of that kind--butI feel that I want to say it. I shall always love you just thisway--always--I feel it, I know it!--as long as I live! Will youremember, darling?--remember--everything?"

"Yes--yes! And you, Paul?"

"Till death!" And his lips held hers, regardless of ten thousand Countsand their claims upon her caresses. 

And they clung together again in the anguish of parting that comes atsome time, or another into the lives of all who know love. 

Then like mourners walking away from the graves of their loved ones, they returned to the ballroom, with the dull ache of buried happiness intheir hearts. 

CHAPTER XIV

Out--far out--in the great American West, the Boy wandered. And PaulVerdayne, understanding as only he could understand, felt how little usehis companionship and sympathy really were at this crisis of the Boy'slife. 

All through the month of August they travelled, the Boy looking upon theland he had been so eager to see with eyes that saw nothing but his owndisappointment, and the barrenness of his future. The hot sun beat downupon the shadeless prairies with the intensity of a living flame. But itseemed as nothing to the heat of his own passion--his own fieryrebellion against the decree of destiny--altogether powerless againstthe withering despair that had choked all the aspirations and ambitionswhich, his whole life long, he had cultivated and nourished in the soilof his developing soul. 

He thought again and again of the glories so near at hand--the gloriesthat had for years been the goal of his ambition. He pictured thepageant to come--the glitter of armor and liveries, the splendor andsparkle of jewels and lights, and all the dazzling gorgeousness of royalequipments--the throngs of courtiers and beautiful women bowing beforehim, proud of the privilege of doing him homage--him, a mere boy--yetthe king--the absolute monarch of his little realm, and supreme in hisundisputed sway over the hearts of his people--his people who hadworshipped his beautiful mother and, if only for her sake, made an idolof her son. He saw himself crowned by loving hands with the goldencirclet he loved and reverenced, and meant to redeem from the stigma ofa worthless father's abuse and desecration; he saw his own young hands, strong, pure, and undefiled by any form of bribery or politicalcorruption, wielding the sceptre that should--please God!--bringeverlasting honor and fame to the little principality. He saw all this, and yet it did not thrill him any more! It was all Dead Sea fruit, dustand ashes in his hand. He wanted but one thing now--and his wholekingdom did not weigh one pennyweight against it. 

But in spite of his preoccupation the freedom and massiveness of theWest broadened the Boy's mental vision. He absorbed the spirit of thebig world it typified, and he saw things more clearly than in thecrowded city. And yet he suffered more, too. He could not often talkabout his sorrow and his loss, but he felt all the time the unspokensympathy in Verdayne's companionship, and was grateful for thecompleteness of the understanding between them. 

Once, far out in a wide expanse of sparsely settled land, the two cameupon a hut--a little rough shanty with a sod roof, and probably but twotiny rooms at most. It was nearing evening, and the red rays of thesetting sun fell upon a young woman, humbly clad, sitting on a bench atthe doorway, and cuddling upon her knee a little baby dressed in coarse, but spotlessly white garments. A whistle sounded on the still air, andthrough the waving grain strode a stalwart man, an eager, expectantlight in his bronzed face. The girl sprang to meet him with aninarticulate cry of joy, and wife and baby were soon clasped close tohis breast. 

Paul could not bear it. He turned away with a sob in his throat andlooked into Verdayne's eyes with such an expression of utterhopelessness that the older man felt his own eyes moisten with thefervor of his sympathy. That poor, humble ranchman possessed somethingthat was denied the Boy, prince of the blood though he was. 

And the two men talked of commonplace subjects that night in subduedtones that were close to tears. Both hearts were aching with theconsciousness of unutterable and irreparable loss. 

 * * * * *

Through the long nights that followed, out there in the primitive, Paulthought of the hideousness of life as he saw it now, with a loathingthat time seemed only to increase. He pictured Opal--his love--as thewife of that old French libertine, till his soul revolted at the verythought. Such a thing was beyond belief. 

Once he said to Verdayne, thinking of the conversation he had had withOpal on the night of the ball at the Plaza, "Father Paul, who was Lord Hubert Aldringham? The name sounds sofamiliar to me--yet I can't recall where I heard it. "

"Why, he was my uncle, Boy, my mother's brother. A handsome, wicked, devil-may-care sort of fellow to whom nothing was sacred. You must haveheard us speak of him at home, for mother was very fond of him. "

"And you, Father Paul?"

"I--detested him, Boy!"

And then the Boy told him something that Opal had said to him of thepossibility--nay, the probability--of Lord Hubert's being her owngrandfather. Verdayne was pained--grieved to the heart--at the terriblesignificance of this--if it were true. And there was little reason, alas, to doubt it! How closely their lives were woven together--Paul'sand Opal's! How merciless seemed the demands of destiny!

What a juggler of souls Fate was!

 * * * * *

And the month of August passed away. And September found the two menstill wandering in an aimless fashion about the prairie country, and yetwith no desire for change. The Boy was growing more and moredissatisfied, less and less resigned to the decrees of destiny. 

At last, one dull, gray, moonless night, when neither could woo covetedsleep to his tired eyes, the Boy said to his companion, "Father Paul, I'm going to be a man--a man, do you hear? I am going to NewOrleans--you know Mr. Ledoux asked us to come in September--and I'mgoing to marry Opal, whatever the consequences! I will not be bound to apiece of flesh I abhor, for the sake of a mere kingdom--not for the sakeof a world! I will not sell my manhood! I will not sacrifice myself, norallow the girl I love to become a burnt-offering for a mother's sin. Iwill not! Do you remember away off there, " and he pointed off to thesouth of them, "the little shack, and the man and the woman and--thebaby? Father Paul, I want--that! And I'm going to have it, too! Do youblame me?"

And Verdayne threw his arm around the Boy's neck, and said, "Blame you?No, Boy, no! And may God bless and speed you!"

And the next day they started for the South. 

CHAPTER XV

It was early in the morning, a few days later, when Paul Verdayne andhis young friend reached New Orleans. Immediately after breakfast--hewould have presented himself before had he dared--the Boy called at thehome of the Ledouxs. Verdayne had important letters to write, as heinformed the Boy with a significant smile, and begged to be allowed toremain behind. 

And the impatient youth, blessing him mentally for his tact, set forthalone. 

The residence that he sought was one of the most picturesque andbeautiful of the many stately old mansions of the city. It was enclosedby a high wall that hid from the passers-by all but the most tantalizingglimpses of a fragrant, green tropical garden, and gave an air ofexclusiveness to the habitation of this proud old family. As the Boypassed through the heavy iron gate, and his eye gazed in appreciationupon the tints of foliage no autumn chills had affected, and the glintsof sun and shadow that only heightened the splendor of blossom, andshrub, and vine, which were pouring their incense upon the air, he feltthat he was indeed entering the Garden of Eden--the Garden of Eden withno French serpents to tempt from him the woman that had been created hishelpmeet. 

He found Opal, and a tall, handsome young man in clerical vestments, sitting together upon the broad vine-shaded veranda. The girl greetedhim cordially and introduced him to the priest, Father Whitman. 

At first Paul dared not trust himself to look at Opal too closely, andhe did not notice that her face grew ashen at his approach. She hadrecovered her usual self-possession when he finally looked at her, andnow the only apparent sign of unusual agitation was a slight flush uponher cheek--an excited sparkle in her eye--which might have been theeffect of many causes. 

He watched the priest curiously. How noble-looking he was! He felt surethat he would have liked him in any other garb. What did his presencehere portend?

Paul had supposed that Opal was a Catholic; indeed had been but littleconcerned what she professed. She had never appeared to him to bespecially religious, but, if she was, that absurd idea of self-sacrificefor a dead mother she had never known might appeal to the love ofpenance which is inherent in all of Catholic faith, and she might notsurrender to her great love for him. 

The priest rose. 

"Must you go, Father?" asked Opal. 

"Yes!. . . I will call to-morrow, then?"

"Yes--tomorrow! And"--she suddenly threw herself upon her knees at hisfeet--"your blessing, Father" she begged. 

The priest laid a hand upon her head, and raised his eyes to Heaven. Then, making the sign of the cross upon her forehead, he took her handsin his, and gently raised her to her feet. She clung to his handsimploringly. 

"Absolution, Father, " she pleaded. 

He hesitated, his face quivering with emotions his eyes lustrous withtears, a world of feeling in every line of his countenance. 

"Child, " he said hoarsely, "child! Don't tempt me!"

"But you _must_ say it, you know, or what will happen to me?"

The priest still hesitated, but her eyes would not release him till hewhispered, "_Absolvo te_, my daughter, and--God bless you!"

And releasing her hands, he bowed formally to Paul and hurried down thebroad stone steps and through the gate. 

Opal watched him, a smile, half-remorseful and half-triumphant, upon herface. 

"What does it all mean?" asked Paul as he laid his hand upon her arm. 

She laughed nervously. "Oh--nothing! Only--when I see one of thoselong, clerical cassocks, I am immediately seized with an insane desireto find the _man_ inside the priest!"

"Laudable, certainly! And you always succeed, I suppose?"

"Yes, usually!--why not?" And she laughed again. "Don't, Paul! I don'twant to quarrel with you!"

"We won't quarrel, Opal, " he said. But the thought of the priest annoyedhim. 

He seated himself beside her. "Have you no welcome for me?" he said. 

She looked up at him, her eyes sweetly tender. 

"Of course, Paul! I'm very glad to see you again--if you are a bad boy!"

He looked at her in amazement. "I, bad?--No, " he said. And they laughedagain. But it was not the care-free laughter they had known at sea. There was a strained note in the tones of the girl that grated strangelyupon the Boy's sensitive ear. What had happened? he wondered. What wasthe new barrier between them? Was it the priest? Again the thought ofthe priest worried him. 

"Where is my friend, the Count de Roannes?" he ventured at last. 

"He sailed for Paris last week. "

Paul's heart leaped. Surely then their legal betrothal had not takenplace. 

"What happened, Opal?"

"The inevitable!"

And again his heart bounded for joy! The inevitable! Surely that meantthat the girl's better nature had triumphed, had shown her the ignominyof such a union in time to save her. He looked at her for furtherinformation, but seeing her evident embarrassment, forbore to pursue thequestion further. 

They wandered out through the luxurious garden, and the spell of itsenchantment settled upon them both. 

He pulled a crimson rose from a bush and began listlessly to strip thethorns from the stalk. "Roses in September, " he said, "are like love inthe autumn of life. "

And they both thought again of the Count and a chill passed over theirspirits. The girl watched him curiously. 

"Do you always cut the thorns from your roses?" she asked. 

"Certainly-sooner or later. Don't you?"

"O no! I am a woman, you see, and I only hold my rose tightly in myfingers and smile in spite of the pricks as if to convince the worldthat my rose has no thorns. "

"Is that honest?"

"Perhaps not--but--yes, I think it is! If one really loves a rose, yousee, one forgets that it has thorns--really forgets!". 

"Until too late!"

But there was some undercurrent of hidden meaning even in this subject, and Paul tried another. 

He asked her about the books she had read since they parted and told herof his travels. He painted for her a picture of the little cabin on thewestern prairie, with its man and its woman and its baby, and shelistened with a strange softness in her eyes. He felt that sheunderstood. 

There was a tiny lake in the garden, and they sat upon the shore andlooked into the water, at an unaccountable loss for words. At last Paul, with a boyish laugh, relieved the situation by rolling up his sleeve anddabbling for pebbles in the sand at the bottom. 

There was not much said--only a word now and then, but both, in spite oftheir consciousness of the barrier between them, were rejoicing in thefact that they were together, while Paul, happy in his new-bornresolution, was singing in his heart. 

Should he tell her now?

He looked up quickly. 

"Opal, " he said, "you knew I would come. "

"Why?" she asked. 

"Because--I love you!"

The girl tried to laugh away the serious import of his tone. 

"I am not looking for men to love me, Paul, " she said. 

"No, that's the trouble. You never have to. "

He turned away again and for a few moments had no other apparent aim inlife than a careful scrutiny of the limpid water. 

Somehow he felt a chill underlying her most casual words to-day. Whathad become of the freemasonry between them they had both so readilyrecognized on shipboard?

Just then Gilbert Ledoux and his wife strolled into the garden. Theywere genuinely pleased to see Paul and insisted on keeping him forluncheon. The conversation drifted to his western trip and other lesspersonal things and not again did he have an opportunity to talk alonewith Opal. 

Paul took his departure soon after, promising to return for dinner, andto bring Verdayne with him. Then, he resolved to himself, he would tellOpal why he had come. Then he would claim her as his wife--his queen!

 * * * * *

And Paul kept his word. 

That evening they found themselves alone in a deep-recessed windowfacing the dimly-lighted street. 

"Opal, " said Paul, "do you know why I have come to New Orleans? Can'tyou imagine, dear?"

She instantly divined the tenor of his thoughts, and shook her head in atremor of sudden fright. 

"I have come to tell you that I have fought it all out and that I cannotlive without you. Though I am breaking my plighted troth, I ask you tobecome my wife!"

Her eyes glistened with a strange lustre. 

"Oh, Paul! Paul!" she murmured, faintly. "Why did you not say thisbefore--or--why do you tell me now?"

"Because now I know I love you more than all the world--more than myduty--more than my life! Is that enough?"

And Paul was about to break into a torrent of passionate appeal, whenGilbert Ledoux joined them and, shortly after, Mrs. Ledoux called Opalto her side. 

Opal looked miserably unhappy. Why was she not rejoicing? Paul knew thatshe loved him. Nothing could ever make him doubt that. As he stoodwondering, idly exchanging platitudes with his genial host, Mrs. Ledouxspoke in a tone of ringing emphasis that lingered in Paul's ears all therest of his life, "I think, Opal, it is time to share our secret!"

And then, as the girl's face paled, and her frail form trembled with theforce of her emotion, her mother hastened to add, "Gentlemen, you willrejoice with us that our daughter was last week formally betrothed tothe Count de Roannes!"

The inevitable _had_ happened. 

CHAPTER XVI

How the remainder of the evening passed, Paul Zalenska never knew. As helooked back upon it, during the months that followed, it seemed likesome hideous dream from which he was struggling to awake. He talked, hesmiled, he even laughed, but scarcely of his own volition; it was asthough another personality acted through him. 

He was a temperate boy, but that night he drank more champagne than wasgood for him. Paul Verdayne was grieved. Not that he censured the lad. He knew only too well the anguish the Boy was suffering, and he couldnot find it in his heart to blame him for the dissipation. And yetVerdayne also knew how unavailing were all such attempts to drown thesorrow that had so shocked the Boy's sensitive spirit. 

As he gazed regretfully at the Boy across the dinner table, the butlerplaced a cablegram before him. Receiving a nod of permission from hishostess, he hastily tore open the envelope and paled at its contents. 

The message was signed by the Verdaynes' solicitor, and read:

 _Sir Charles very ill. Come immediately. _

 * * * * *

Before they left the house, Paul sought Opal for a few last words. Therewere no obstacles placed in his way now by anxious parental authority. He smiled cynically as he noticed how clear the way was made for him, now that Opal was "safeguarded" by her betrothal. 

She drew him to one side, whispering, "Before you judge me too harshly, Paul, please listen to what I have to say. I feel I have the right tomake this explanation, and you have the right to hear it. Under theFrench law, I am legally bound to the Count de Roannes. Fearing that Imight not remain true to a mere verbal pledge--you knew we were engaged, Paul, for I told you that, last summer--the Count asked that thebetrothal papers be executed before his unavoidable return to Paris. Knowing no real reason for delay, since it had to come some time, Iconsented; but I stipulated that I was to have six months of freedombefore becoming his wife. Arrangements have been made for us all to goabroad next spring, and we shall be married in Paris. Paul, I did nottell you this, this afternoon--I could not! I wanted to see you--thereal you--just once more, before you heard the bitter news, for I knewthat after you had heard, you would never look or speak the same to meagain. Oh, Paul, pity me! Pity me when I tell you that I asked for thosesix months simply that I might dedicate them to you, and to the burial, in my memory, of our little dream of love! It was only my little fancy, Paul! I wanted to play at being constant that long to our dream. Iwanted to wear my six-months' mourning for our still-born love. Ithought it was only a little game of 'pretend' to you, Paul--why shouldit be anything else? But it was very real to me. "

Her voice broke, and the Boy took her hand in his, tenderly, for hisresentment had long since died away. 

"Opal, " he faltered, "I no longer know nor care who or what I am. Thisexperience has taken me out of myself, and set my feet in strange paths. I had a life to live, Opal, but I have forgotten it in yours. I hadtheories, ideals, hopes, aspirations--but I don't know where they arenow, Opal. They are gone--gone with your smile--"

Opal's eyes grew soft with caresses. 

"They will come back, Paul--they must come back! They were born inyou--of Truth itself, not of a mere woman. You will forget me, Boy, andyour life will not be the pitiful waste you think. It must not be!"

"I used to think that, Opal. It never seemed to me that life could everbe an utter waste so long as a man had work to do and the strength andskill to do it. But now--I'm all at sea! I only know--how--I shall miss_you!_"

Opal grew thoughtful. 

"And how will it be with me?" she said sadly. "I have never learned towear a mask. I can't pose. I can't wear 'false smiles that cover anaching heart. ' Perhaps the world may teach me now--but I'm not ahypocrite--yet!"

"I believe you, Opal! I love you because you are you!"

"And I love you, Paul, because you are you!"

And even then he did not clasp her in his arms, nor attempt it. She wasanother's now, and his hands were tied. He must try to control his onegreat weakness--the longing for her. 

And in the few moments left to them, they talked and cheered each other, as intimate friends on the eve of a long separation. They both knew nowthat they loved--but they also knew that they must part--and forever!

"I love you, Paul, " said Opal, "even as you love me. I do not hesitateto confess it again, because--well, I am not yet his wife. And I want togive you this one small comfort to help to make you strong to fight andconquer, and--endure!"

"But, Opal, you are the one woman in the world God meant for me! How canI face the world without you?"

"Better that you should, Paul, and keep on fancying yourself loving mealways, than that you should have me for a wife, and then weary of me, as men do weary of their wives!"

"Opal! Never!"

"Oh, but you might, Boy. Most men do. It's their nature, I suppose. "

"But it is not _my_ nature, Opal, to grow tired of what I love. I am notcapricious. Why should you think so?"

"But it's human nature, Paul; there is no denying that. To think, Paul, that we could grow to clasp hands like this--that we couldkiss--actually kiss, Paul, _calmly_, as women kiss each other--that wecould ever rest in each other's arms and grow weary!"

But Paul would not listen. He always would have loved her, always! Heloved her, anyway, and always would, were she a thousand times theCountess de Roannes, but it was too late! too late!

"Always remember, Paul, wherever you are and whatever you do, " went onOpal, "that I love you. I know it now, and I know how much! Let thememory of it be an inspiration to you when your spirits flag, and aconsolation when skies are gray, and--Paul--oh, I love you--loveyou--that's all! Kiss me--just once--our last goodbye! There can be noharm in that, when it's for the last time!"

And Paul, with a heart-breaking sob, clasped her in his arms and pressedhis lips to hers as one kisses the face of his beloved dead. He wonderedvaguely why he felt no passion--wondered at the utter languor of thesenses that did not wake even as he pressed his lips to hers. It was nota woman's body in his arms--but as the sexless form of one long dead andlost to him forever. It was not passion now--it was love, stripped ofall sensuality, purged of all desire save the longing to endure. 

It was the hour of love's supremest triumph--renunciation!

CHAPTER XVII

Back in England again--England in the fall of the year--England in theautumn of life, for Sir Charles Verdayne was nearing his end. The Boyspent a few weeks at Verdayne Place, and then left to pay his firstvisit to his fiancée. Paul Verdayne was prevented by his father's illhealth from accompanying him to Austria, as had been the original plan. 

Opal had asked of the Boy during that last strange hour they had spenttogether that he should make this visit, and bow obediently to the callof destiny--as she had done. She did not know who he really was, norwhat station in life his fiancée graced, but she did know that it washis duty bravely and well to play his part in the drama of life, whatever the role. She would not have him shirk. It was a horriblething, she had said with a shudder--none knew it better than she--butshe would be glad all her life to think that he had been no coward, andhad not cringed beneath the bitterest blow of fate, but had been strongbecause she loved him and believed in him. 

And so, since Paul Verdayne could not be absent from his father's side, with many a reluctant thought the Boy set forth for Austria alone. 

During his absence, Isabella--she who had been Isabella Waring--returnedfrom Blackheath a widow with two grown daughters--two more moderneditions of the original Isabella. The widow herself was graver and morematronly, yet there was much of the old Isabella left, and Verdayne wasglad to see her. Lady Henrietta gave her a cordial invitation to visitVerdayne Place, which she readily accepted, passing many pleasant hourswith the friend of her youth and helping to while away the long daysthat Verdayne found so tiresome when the Boy was away from him. 

Isabella was still "a good sort, " and made life much less unbearablethan it might have been, but Verdayne often smiled to think of the"puppy-love" he had once felt for her. It was amusing, now, and theyboth laughed over it--though Isabella would not have been a woman hadshe not wondered at times why her "old pal" had never married. There hadbeen chances, lots of them, for the girls had always liked theblue-eyed, manly boy he had been, and petted and flattered and courtedhim all through his youth. Why hadn't he chosen one of them? Had hereally cared so much for her--Isabella? And she often found herselflooking with much pitying tenderness upon the lonely man, whose heartseemed so empty of the family ties it should have fostered--andwondering. 

Lady Henrietta, too, was set to thinking as the days went by, andturning, one night, to her son, "Paul, " she said, "I begin to think thatperhaps I was wrong in separating you from the girl you loved, and sospoiling your life. Isabella would have made you a fairly good wife, Ibelieve, as wives go, and you must forgive your mother, who meant it forthe best. She did not see the way clearly, then, and so denied you theone great desire of your heart"

She looked at him closely, but his heart was no longer worn upon hissleeve, and finding his face non-committal, she went on slowly, feelingher way carefully as she advanced. 

"Perhaps it is not too late now, my son. Don't let my prejudices standin your way again, for you are still young enough to be happy, and Ishall be truly glad to welcome any wife--any!"

Verdayne did not reply. His eyes were studying the pattern of the rugbeneath his feet. His mother's face flushed with embarrassment at thedelicacy of the subject, but she stumbled on bravely. 

"Paul, " she said, "Isabella is young yet, and you are not so very old. It may not, even now, be too late to hold a little grandchild on my kneebefore I die. I have been so fond of Paul--he is so very like you whenyou were a boy--and have wished--oh, you don't know how a mother feels, Paul--I have often wished that he were your son, or that I might havehad a grandson just like him. Do you know, Paul, I have often fanciedthat your son, had you had one, would have been very like this dearBoy. "

Verdayne choked back a sob. If his mother could only understand as somewomen would have understood! If he could have told her the truth! But, no, he never could. Even now it would have been a terrible shock to her, and she could never have forgiven, never held up her head again, if shehad known. 

As for marrying Isabella--could he? After all, was it right to let theold name die out for want of an heir? Was it just to his father? AndIsabella would not expect to be made love to. There was never that sortof nonsense about her, and she would make all due allowance for his ageand seriousness. 

His mother felt she had been very kind and generous in renouncing theold objection of twenty years' standing, and, too, she felt that it wasonly right, after spoiling her son's life for so long, to do her best toatone for the mistake. It must be confessed she could not see what therewas about Isabella to hold the love and loyalty of a man like Paul forso long, but then--and she sighed at the thought of the wastedyears--"Love is blind, " they say--and so's a lover! And her motherlyheart longed for grandchildren--Paul's children--as it had always longedfor them. 

Paul Verdayne sat opposite his penitent mother and pondered. The scentfrom a bowl of red roses on his mother's table almost overpowered himwith memories. 

He thought of the couch of deep red roses on which he had lain, caressedby the velvet petals. He could inhale their fragrance even yet--he couldlook into her eyes and breathe the incense of her hair--her wholeglorious person--that was like none other in all the world. Yes, she hadbeen happy--and he would remember! She would be happier yet could sheknow that he had been faithful to his duty--and surely this was his dutyto his race. His Queen would have it so, he felt sure. 

Rising, he bent over his mother, his eyes bright with unshed tears, andkissed her calmly upon the brow. Then he walked quietly from the room. His resolution was firmly fixed. 

He would marry Isabella!

CHAPTER XVIII

Sir Charles Verdayne lingered for several weeks, no stronger, nor yetperceptibly weaker. He took a sudden fancy to see his old friend, Captain Grigsby, and the old salt was accordingly sent for. His presenceacted as a tonic upon the dying man, and the two old friends spent manypleasant hours together, talking--as old people delight in talking--ofthe days of the distant past. 

"Is this widow the Isabella who once raised the devil with your Paul?"asked Grigsby. 

"Same wench!" answered Sir Charles, a twinkle in his eye. 

"Hum!" said the Captain--and then said again, "Hum!" Then he addedmeditatively, "Blasted unlucky kiss that! Likely wench enough, but--never set the Thames on fire!--nor me!"

"Oh the kiss didn't count, " said Sir Charles. "As I said to the boy'smother at the time, a man isn't obliged to marry every woman he kisses!Mighty good thing, too--eh, Grig? Besides, a kiss like that is an insultto any flesh and blood woman!"

"An insult?"

"The worst kind! You see, Grig, no woman likes to be kissed that way. Whether she's capable of feeling a single thrill of passion herself ornot, she likes to be sure that she can inspire it in a man. And a kisslike that--well, it rouses all her fighting blood! Makes her feel she'sno woman at all in the man's eye--merely a doll to be kissed. D'ye see?It's damned inconsistent, of course, but it's the woman of it!"

"The devil of it, you mean!" the old Captain chuckled in response. Then, "Paul had a lucky escape, " he said, as he looked furtively around theroom for listening ears, "mighty lucky escape! And an experience righton the heels of it to make up for the loss of a hundred such wenchesand--say, Charles, he's got a son to be proud of! The Boy is certainlyworth all the price!"

"Any price--any price, Grig!" Then the old man went on, "If Henriettaonly knew! She thinks the world of the youngster, you know--no one couldhelp that--but what if she knew? Paul's been mighty cautious. I oftenlaugh when I see them out together--him and the Boy--and think what asensation one could spring on the public by letting the cat out of thebag. And the woman would suffer. Wouldn't she, just! Wouldn't they tearher to pieces!"

"Yes, they would, " said the Captain, "they certainly would. This is aworld of hypocrites, Charles, damned rotten hypocrites!"

"That's what it is, Grig! Not one of those same old hens who would havesaid, 'Ought we to visit her?' and denounced the whole 'immoral' affair, and all that sort of thing--not one of them, I say, but would--"

"Give her very soul to know what such a love means! O they would, Charles--they would--every damned old cat of them, who would never getan opportunity to play the questionable--no, not one in a thousandyears--if they searched for it forever!"

"Yet women are made so, Grigsby--they can't help it! Henrietta wouldfaint at the mere suggestion of accepting as a daughter-in-law a womanwith a past!"

And the old man sighed. 

"I'd have given my eyes--yes, I would, Grig--to have seen that womanjust once! God! the man she made out of my boy! Of course it may havebeen for the best that it turned out as it did, but--damn it all, Grig, she was worth while! There's no dodging that!"

"Nobody wants to dodge it, Charles! She was over-sexed, perhaps--butbetter that than undersexed--eh?"

 * * * * *

But the exhilaration caused by the coming of his old friend graduallywore itself away, and Sir Charles began to grow weaker. And at last theend came. He had grown anxious to see the Boy again, and the youngfellow had returned and spent much time with the old man, who loved thesound of his voice as it expressed his fresh, frank ideas. 

But Sir Charles spent his last hours with his son. 

"Paul, " he said, in a last confidential whisper, touching upon the themethat had never been mentioned between them before, "Iunderstand--everything--you know, and I'm proud of you--and him! I havewanted to say something, or do something for you--often--often--to helpyou--but it's the sort of thing a chap has to fight out for himself, and I thought I'd better keep out of it! But I wanted you toknow--_now_--that I've known it all--all along--and been proud ofyou--both!"

And their hands clasped closely, and the eyes of both were wet, but evenon the brink of death the lips of the younger man were sealed. The+silence of one-and-twenty years remained unbroken. +It was not afoolish reticence that restrained him--but simply that he could not findwords to voice the memories that grew more and more sacred with thepassing of the years. 

And at evening, when the family had gathered about him, the old man laywith his son's hand in his, but his eyes looked beyond and rested on theface of the Boy, who seemed the renewal of hit son's youth, when lifewas one glad song! And thus he passed to the Great Beyond. 

And his son was Sir Paul Verdayne, the last of his race. 

That night, the young baronet and the Boy sat alone over their cigars. The Boy spoke at some length of his extensive Austrian visit. ThePrincess Elodie would make him a good wife, he said. She was of goodsturdy stock, healthy, strong--and, well, a little heavy and dull, perhaps, but one couldn't expect everything! At least, her honor wouldnever be called into question. He would always feel sure that his namewas safe with her! He was glad he went to Austria. There were politicalcomplications that he had not understood before which made the marriagean absolute necessity for the salvation of his country's position amongthe kingdoms of the world, and he was more resigned to it now. Yes, indeed, he was far more resigned. The princess wasn't by any meansimpossible--not a half bad sort--and--yes, he was resigned! He said itover and over, but without convincing Sir Paul--or deceiving himself!

As for the elder man, he said but little. He had been wonderingthroughout that dinner-hour whether he could ever really make Isabellahis wife. The Boy thought of Isabella, too, and was anxious to knowwhether his Father Paul was going to be happy at last. He had been verycurious to see the woman who could play so cruel a part toward the manhe loved. If he had been Verdayne, he thought, he would never forgiveher--never! Still, if Father Paul loved the woman--as he certainly mustto have remained single for her sake so long--it put a different face onthe matter, and of course it was Verdayne's affair, not his! The Boy hadbeen disappointed in Isabella's appearance and attractions--she was notat all the woman he had imagined his Father Paul would love--but ofcourse she was older now, and age changes some women, and, and--well, heonly hoped that his friend would be happy--happy in his own way, whatever that might be. 

At last, he summoned Vasili to him and called for his own particularyellow wine--the Imperial Tokayi--and the old man filled the glasses. Itwas too much for Verdayne--and all thoughts of Isabella were consignedto eternal oblivion as he remembered the time when _he_ had sipped thatwine with his Queen in the little hotel on the Bürgenstock. 

She would have no cause for jealousy--his darling!

CHAPTER XIX

It was November when Sir Charles died, and Lady Henrietta betook herselfto her sister's for consolation, while Sir Paul and the Boy, with acommon impulse, departed for India. 

They spent Christmas in Egypt, the winter months in the desert, and atlast spring came, with its remembrance of duties to be done. And to theelder man England made its insistent call, as it always did in March. For was it not in England, and in March, the tidings reached him thatunto him a son was born?

He must go back. 

So at last, acting upon a pre-arrangement to which the young Prince hadnot been a party, they made their way back to their own world of men andwomen. 

 * * * * *

"Boy, " said Sir Paul, one day, "the time has come when many questionsyou have asked and wondered about are to be answered, as is your due. Itwas your mother's wish that you should go, at the beginning of May, alone, to Lucerne. There you will find letters awaiting you--fromher--from your Uncle Peter--yes, even from myself--telling you the wholesecret of your birth, the story of your inheritance. "

"Why Lucerne, Father Paul?"

"It was your mother's wish--and mine!"

Then, with a rush of tenderness, the older man threw his arm around theBoy's shoulders. "Boy, " he said, "be charitable and lenient andkind--whatever you read!"

"And what are you going to do, Father Paul? I have not quite two weeksof freedom left, and I begrudge every day I am forced to spend away fromyou. You will go with me to see me crowned--and married?"

"Certainly, Boy! You are to stay in Lucerne only until you are sure youunderstand all the revelations of these letters, and their full import. It may be a week--it may be a day--it may be but a few hours, but--Ican't go with you, and you must not ask me to! It is an experience youmust face alone. I will await you in Venice, Paul, and be sure that whenyou want me, Boy, I will come!"

The Boy's sensitive nature was stirred to the depths by the emotion inSir Paul's face--emotion that all his life long he had never seen therebefore. He grasped his hand--

"Father Paul, " he began, but Sir Paul shook his head at the unspokenappeal in his face and bade him be patient just a little longer andawait his letters, for he could tell him nothing. 

And thus they parted; the Boy to seek in Lucerne the unveiling of hisdestiny, the man to wait in Venice, a place he had shunned forone-and-twenty years, but which was dearer to him than any other city inthe world. It was there that he had lived the climax of his love-life, with its unutterable ecstasy--and unutterable pain. 

Vasili had preceded his young master to Lucerne with the letters thathad been too precious, and of too secret a nature, to be entrusted tothe post. Who can define the sensations of the young prince as he heldin his hand the whole solution of the mystery that had haunted all hisyears? He trembled--paled. What was this secret--perhaps this terriblesecret--which was to be a secret no longer?

Alone in his apartment, he opened the little packet and read the notefrom the Regent, which enclosed the others, and then--he could read nofurther. The few words of information that there stared him in the facedrove every other thought from his mind, every other emotion from hisheart. His father! Why hadn't he seen? Why hadn't he known? A thousandsignificant memories rushed over him in the light of the startlingrevelation. How blind he had been! And he sat for hours, unheeding theflight of time, thinking only the one thought, saying over and overagain the one name, the name of his father, his own father, whom he hadloved so deeply all his life--

_Paul Verdayne!_

CHAPTER XX

At last, when he felt that he could control his scattered senses, heturned over the letters in the packet and found his mother's. How hisboyish heart thrilled at this message from the dead!--a message that hehad waited for, and that had been waiting for him, one-and-twenty years!The letter began:

"Once, my baby, thy father--long before he was thy father--had apresentiment that if he became my lover my life would find a tragic end. 

"Once, likewise, I told thy father, before he became my lover, that theprice we might have to pay, if we permitted ourselves to love, would besorrow and death! For, my baby, these are so often the terrible cost ofsuch a love as ours. That he has been my lover--my beloved--heart of myheart--thine own existence is the living proof; and something--anintangible something--tells me that the rest of his prophecy willlikewise be fulfilled. We have known the sorrow--aye, as few othershave--and even now I feel that we shall also know death!

"It is because of this curious presentiment of mine that I write downfor thee, my baby--my baby Paul--this story of thy father and thymother, and the great love that gave thee to the world. It is but right, before thou comest into thy kingdom, that thou shouldst know--thou andthou alone--the secret of thy birth, that thou mayst carry with theeinto the big world thy birthright--the sweetness of a supreme love. "

Then briefly, but as completely and vividly as the story could bewritten, she pictured for him the beautiful idyl she and her lover hadlived, here in this very spot, two-and-twenty years ago; told him, inher own quaint words, of the beautiful boy she had found in Lucerne, that glorious May so long ago, and how it had been her caprice to wakenhim, until the caprice had become her love, and afterwards her life;told him how she had seen the danger, and had warned the boy to leaveLucerne, while there was yet time, but that he had answered that hewould chance the hurt, because he wished to live, and he knew that onlyshe could teach him how--only she could prove to him the truth of herown words, that _life was love!_

She told how weary and unhappy she had been, picturing with no lightfingers the misery of her life--married when a mere child to a vicioushusband--and all the insults and brutality she was forced to endure; andthen, for contrast, told him tenderly how she had been young again forthis boy she had found in Lucerne. 

There was not one little detail of that idyllic dream of love omittedfrom the picture she drew for him of these two--and their sublime threeweeks of life on the Bürgenstock with their final triumphant, but bitterculmination in Venice. She told him of what they had been pleased tocall their wedding--the wedding of their souls--nor did she seek tolessen the enormity of their sin. 

She touched with the tenderest of fingers upon the first dawn in theirhearts of the hope of the coming of a child--a child who would holdtheir souls together forever--a child who would immortalize their lovetill it should live on, and on, and on, through countless generationsperhaps--till who could say how much the world might be benefited andhelped just because they two had loved!

And then she told him--sweetly, as a mother should--of all her dreamsfor her son--all her hopes and ambitions that were centered around hislittle life--the life of her son who was to redeem the land--told himhow ennobled and exalted she had felt that this strong, manly Englishmanwas her lover, and how sure she had been that their child would have anoble mind. 

 "Thou wilt think my thoughts, my baby Paul--thou wilt dream my dreams, and know all my ambitions and longings. Thou canst not be ignoble or base, for thou wert born of a love that makes all other unions mean and low and sordid by comparison. "

Then, after telling, as only she could tell it, of the bitterness ofthat parting in Venice, when, because of the threatening danger, fromwhich there was no escape, she left her lover to save his life, she wenton:

 "Dost thou know yet, when thou readest this, little Paul, with thy father's eyes--dost thou know, I wonder, the meaning of that great love which to the twain who realize it becomes a sacrament--dost understand?--a sacrament holier even than a prayer. It was even so with thy father and me--dost thou--canst thou understand? If not yet, sometime thou wilt, and thou wilt then forgive thy mother for her sin. "

She told of the taunts and persecutions to which she was forced tosubmit upon her return to her kingdom. The king and his friends hadvilely commended her for her "patriotism" in finding an heir to thethrone. "Napoleon would have felt honored, " her husband had sneered, "ifJosephine had adopted thy method of finding him the heir he desired!"But through it all, she said, she had not faltered. She had held the onethought supreme in her heart and remembered that however guilty shemight be in the eyes of the world, there was a higher truth in the wordsof Mrs. Browning, "God trusts me with a child, " and had dared to pray. 

 "To pray for strength and grace and wisdom to give thee birth, my baby, and to make thee all that thou shouldst be--to develop thee into the man I and thy father would have thee become. I was not only giving an heir to the throne of my realm. I was giving a son to the husband of my soul. But the world did not know that. Whatever it might suspect, it could actually know--nothing! The secret was thy father's and mine--his and mine alone--and now it is thine, as it needs must be! Guard it well, my baby, and let it make thy life and thy manhood full of strength and power and sweetness and glory and joy, and remember, as thou readest for the first time this story of thy coming into the world, that thy mother counted it her greatest, proudest glory to be the chosen love of thy father, and the mother of his son. "

She had touched as lightly as she could upon the dark hours of herbaby's coming, when she was doomed to pass through that Valley of theShadow far away from the protecting and comforting love of him whoseright it was by every law of Nature to have been, then of all times, byher side; but the Boy felt the pathos of it, and his eyes filled withtears. His mother--the mother of his dreams--his gloriousqueen-mother--to suffer all this for him--for him!

And Father Paul!--his own father! What must this cross have been to him!Surely he would love him all the rest of his life to make up for allthat suffering!

Then he thought of the other letters and he read them all, his hearttorn between grief and anger--for they told him all the appallingdetails of the tragedy that had taken his mother from him, and left hisfather and himself bereaved of all that made life dear and worth theliving to man and boy. 

One of the letters was from Sir Paul, telling the story over again fromthe man's point of view, and laying bare at last the great secret theBoy had so often longed to hear. Nothing was kept back. Even everynote--every little scrap of his mother's writing--had been sacredly keptand was now enclosed for the eyes of their son to read. The closed doorin Father Paul's life was unlocked now, and his son entered andunderstood, wondering why he had been so blind that he had not seen itall before. The writing on the wall had certainly been plain enough. Andhe smiled to remember the readiness with which he had believed theplausible story of Isabella Waring!

And that man--the husband of his mother--the king who had taken her dearlife from her with a curse upon his lips! Thank God he was not hisfather! No, in all the world of men, there was no one but PaulVerdayne--no one--to whom he would so willingly have given thetitle--and to him he had given it in his heart long before. 

He sat and read the letters through again, word by word, living inimagination the life his mother had lived, feeling all she had felt. God! the bliss, the agony of it all!

And Paul Zalenska, surrounded by the messages from the past that hadgiven him being, and looking at the ruin of his own life with eyes newlyawakened to the immensity of his loss, bowed his face in his hands andwept like a heart-broken child over the falling of his house of cards. 

Ah! his mother had understood--she had loved and suffered. She was olderthan he, too, and had known her world as he could not possibly know it, and yet she had bade him take the gifts of life when they came his way. 

And--God help him!--he had not done so!

CHAPTER XXI

The next morning, Paul Zalenska rose early. He had not slept well. Hewas troubled with conflicting emotions, conflicting memories. The wonderand sorrow of it all had been too much even for his youth and health toendure. His mother had won so much from life, he thought--and he solittle! He thought of Opal--indeed, when was she ever absent from histhoughts, waking or sleeping?--and the memory of his loss made himfrantic. Opal--his darling! And _they_ might have been just as happy ashis mother and father had been, but they had let their happiness slipfrom them! What fools! Oh, what fools they had been! Not to have riskedanything--everything--for their happiness! And where was she now? InParis, in her husband's arms, no doubt, where he could hold her to him, and caress her and kiss her at his own sweet will! God! It wasintolerable, unthinkable! And he--Paul, her lover--lying there alone, who would have died a thousand deaths, if that were possible, to saveher from such a fate!

At last he forced the thought of his own loss from him, and thoughtagain of his mother. Ah, but her death had been opportune! How gloriousto die when life and love had reached their zenith! in the fullness ofjoy to take one's farewell of the world!

And in the long watches of that wakeful night, he formed the resolutionthat he put into effect at the first hint of dawn. He would spend oneentire day in solitude. He would traverse step by step the primrosepaths of his mother's idyllic dream; he would visit every scene, everynook, she and her lover had immortalized in their memories; he would seeit all, feel it all--yes, _live_ it all, and become so impregnated withits witchery that it would shed lustre and glory upon all the bleakyears to come. So well had she told her story, so perfect had been itsword-painting, he was sure that he would recognize every scene. 

He explored the ivy-terrace leading to his mother's room, he walked upand down under the lime trees, and he sat on the bench still in positionunder the ivy hanging from the balustrade, and looked up wistfully atthe windows of the rooms that had been hers. Then he engaged a launchand crossed the lake, and was not satisfied until he had found among theyoung beeches on the other side what he felt must have been the exactspot where his mother had peeped through the leaves upon her ardentlover, before she knew him. And he roamed about among the trees, feelinga subtle sense of satisfaction in being in the same places that they hadbeen who gave him being, as though the spirits of their two natures muststill haunt the spot and leave some trace of their presence even yet. Hefollowed each of the three paths until he had decided to his ownsatisfaction by which one his mother had escaped from her pursuer, thatday, and he laughed a buoyant, boyish laugh at the image it suggested ofVerdayne, the misogynist--his stately, staid old Father Paul--actually"running after a woman!" Truly the Boy was putting aside his own sorrowand discontent to-day. He was living in the past, identifying himselfwith every phase of it, living in imagination the life of these two sodear to him, and rejoicing in their joy. Life had certainly been onesweet song to them, for a brief space, a duet in Paradise, brokenup--alas for the Boy!--before it had become the trio it should havedeveloped into, by every law of Nature. 

He sought the little village that they had visited before him, andlunched at the same little hotel. He drove out to the little farmhousewhere the lovers had had their first revelation of him--their baby--andhe wept over the loss of the glorious mother she would have been to him. He even climbed the mountain and looked with her eyes out over thelandscape. He was young and strong, and he determined to let nothingescape him--to let no sense of fatigue deter him--but to crowd the dayfull of memories of her. 

The Boy, as his mother had been before him, was enraptured by all thathe saw. The beauty of the snow-capped mountains against the blue of thesky and the golden glamour of the sunshine appealed to him keenly, andhe watched the reflection of it all in the crystal lake in a trance ofdelight. 

"Ah, " he thought, "had they deliberately searched the world over for afitting setting for their idyl, they could not have selected a retreatmore perfect than this. It was made for lovers who love as they did. "

And at last, under the witchery of the star-studded skies, wearied andhungry, but filled and thrilled with the fragrance and glory of thememories of the mother whom his young heart idealized, he left thelaunch at the landing by the terrace steps and started blithely for thelittle restaurant, dreaming, always dreaming, not of the future--but ofthe past. 

For him, alas, the future held no promise!

CHAPTER XXII

During the Boy's absence that day a new guest had arrived at the littlehotel. A capricious American lady, who had come to Lucerne, "for a dayor two's rest, " she said, before proceeding to Paris where an impatientCount awaited her and his wedding-day. 

Yes, Opal was actually in Lucerne, and the suite of rooms once occupiedby the mysterious Madame Zalenska were now given over to the little ladyfrom over the seas, who, in spite of her diminutive stature, contrivedto impress everybody with a sense of her own importance. She had justreceived a letter from her fiancé, an unusually impatient communication, even from him. He was anxious, he said, for her and his long-delayedhoneymoon. Honeymoon! God help her! Her soul recoiled in horror from thehideous prospect. Only two days more, she thought, pressing her lipstightly together. Oh, the horror of it! She dared not think of it, orshe would go mad! But she would not falter. She had told herself thatshe was now resigned. She was going to defeat Fate after all!

She had partaken of her dinner, and was standing behind the ivy thatdraped the little balcony, watching the moon in its setting of Swissskies and mystic landscape. How white and calm and spotless it appeared!It was not a man's face she saw there--but that of a woman--the face ofa nun in its saintly, virgin purity, suggesting only sweet inspiringthoughts of the glory of fidelity to duty, of the comfort and peace andrest that come of renunciation. 

Opal clasped her hands together with a thrill of exultation at her ownvictory over the love and longings that were never to be fulfilled. Asong of prayer and thanksgiving echoed in her heart over the thoughtthat she had been strong enough to do her duty and bear the cross thatlife had so early laid upon her shoulders. She felt so good--so true--sopure--so strong to-night. She would make her life, she thought--her lifethat could know no personal love--abound in love for all the world, andbe to all it touched a living, breathing benediction. 

As she gazed she suddenly noticed a lighted launch on the little lake, and an inexplicable prescience disturbed the calm of her musings. Shewatched, with an intensity she could not have explained, the gradualapproach of the little craft. What did that boat, or its passenger, matter to her that she should feel such an acute interest in itsmovements? Yet something told her it did matter much, and though shelaughed at her superstition, nevertheless her heart listened to it, anddared not gainsay its insistent whisper. 

A young man, straight and tall and lithe, bounded from the launch andmounted the terrace steps. She saw his clean-cut profile, hiswell-groomed appearance, which even in the moonlight was plainlyevident. She noted the regal bearing of his well-knit figure, and shecaught the delicious aroma of the particular brand of cigar Paul alwayssmoked, as he passed beneath the balcony where she stood. 

She turned in very terror and fled to her rooms, pulling the curtainscloser. She shrank like a frightened child upon the couch, her facewhite and drawn with fear--of what, she did not know. 

After a time--long, terrible hours, it seemed to her--she parted thecurtains with tremulous fingers and looked out again at the sky, andshuddered. The virgin nun-face had mysteriously changed--the moon thathad looked so pure and spotless was now blood-red with passion. 

Opal crept back, pulling the curtains together again, and threw herselfface downward upon the couch. God help her!

 * * * * *

Paul Zalenska lingered long over his dinner that night. He was tired andthoughtful. And he enjoyed sitting at that little table where his fatherperhaps sat the night he had first seen her who became his love. 

And Paul pictured to himself that first meeting. He tried to imaginethat he was Paul Verdayne, and that shortly his lady would come in withher stately tread, and take her seat, and be waited upon by her elderlyattendant. Perhaps she would look at him through those long dark lasheswith eyes that seemed not to see. But there was no special table, to-night, and the Boy felt that the picture was woefullyincomplete--that he had been left out of the scheme of things entirely. 

After finishing his meal, he went out, as his father had done, out underthe stars and sat on the little bench under the ivy, and smoked a cigar. He felt a curious thrill of excitement, quite out of keeping with hisloneliness. Was it just the memory of that old love-story that hadstirred his blood? Why did his pulse leap, his blood race through hisveins like this, his heart rise to his throat and hammer there sofiercely, so strangely. Only one influence in all the world had everdone this to him--only one influence--_one woman_--and she was miles andmiles away!

Suddenly, impelled by some force beyond his power of resistance--a senseof someone's gaze fixed upon him, he raised his eyes to the ivy abovehim. There, faint and indistinct in the shadow of the leaves, but quiteunmistakable, he saw the white, frightened face of the girl he loved, her luminous eyes looking straight down into his. 

He sprang to his feet, and pulled himself up by the ivy to the level ofthe terrace, but she had vanished and the watching stars dancedmockingly overhead. Was he dreaming? Had that strange old love-storytaken away from him the last remaining shred of sanity? Surely he hadn'tseen Opal! She was in Paris--damn it!--and he clenched his teeth at thethought--certainly not at Lucerne!

He looked at the windows of that enchanted room. All was darkness andsilence. Cursing himself for a madman, he strode into the hall andexamined the Visitors' List. Suddenly the blood leaped to his face--hishead reeled--his heart beat to suffocation. He was not dreaming, forthere, as plainly as words could be written, was the entry:

_Miss Ledoux and maid, New Orleans, U. S. A. _

She was there--in Lucerne!--his Opal!

CHAPTER XXIII

How Paul reached his room, he never knew. He was in an ecstasy--hisyoung blood surging through his veins in response to the leap of theseething passions within. 

Have you never felt it, Reader? If you have not, you had better layaside this book, for you will never, never understand whatfollowed--what _must_ follow, in the very nature of human hearts. 

Fate once more had placed happiness in his grasp--should he fling itfrom him? Never! never again! He remembered his mother and her greatlove, as she had bade him. 

This day, following as it did his mother's letter, had been a revelationto him of the possibilities of life, and of his own capacity forenjoying it. In one week, only one week more, he must take upon hisshoulders the burdens of a kingdom. Should he let a mistaken sense ofright and duty defraud him a second time? Was this barrier--which astronger or a weaker man would have brushed aside without a secondthought--to wreck his life, and Opal's? He laughed exultingly. His wholesoul was on fire, his whole body aflame. 

Beyond the formality of the betrothal, Opal had not yet been bound tothe Count. She was not his--yet! She could not be Paul's wife--Fate hadmade that forever impossible--but she should be _his_, as he knew shealready was at heart. 

They loved, and was not love--everything!

He paced the floor in an excitement beyond his control. Opal should givehim, out of her life, one day--one day in the little hotel on theBürgenstock, where his mother and her lover had been so happy. They, too, should be happy--as happy as two mating birds in a new-builtnest--for one day they would forget all yesterdays and all to-morrows. He would make that one day as glorious and shadowless for her as a daycould possibly be made--one day in which to forget that the world wasgray--- one day which should live in their memories throughout all theyears to come as the one ray of sunshine in two bleak and dreary lives!

And tempted, as he admitted to himself, quite beyond all reason, heswore by all that he held sacred to risk everything--braveeverything--for the sake of living one day in Paradise. 

"We have a right to be happy, " he said. "Everyone has a right to behappy, and we have done no wrong to the world. Why should we two, whohave the capability of making so much of our lives and doing so much forthe world, as we might have, together--why should we be sentenced to themisery of mere existence, while men and women far less worthy ofhappiness enjoy life in its utmost ecstasy?"

One thing he was firmly resolved upon. Opal should not know his realrank. She should give herself to Paul Zalenska, the man--not to Paul thePrince! His rank should gloss over nothing--nothing--and for all sheknew now to the contrary, her future rank as Countess de Roannes wassuperior to his own. 

And then as silence fell about the little hotel, unbroken save by somestrolling musicians in the square near at hand who sent the most tenderof Swiss love-melodies out upon the evening air, Paul walked out to theterrace, passed through the little gate, and reaching the balcony, knocked gently but imperatively upon the door of the room that was oncehis mother's. 

The door was opened cautiously. 

Paul stepped inside, and closed it softly behind him. 

CHAPTER XXIV

In the moonlit room, Paul and Opal faced each other in a silence heavywith emotion. 

It had been months since they parted, yet for some moments neitherspoke. Opal first found her voice. 

"Paul! You-saw me!"

"I felt your eyes!"

"Oh, why did I come!"

Opal had begun to prepare for the night and had thrown about hershoulders a loose robe of crimson silk. Her lustrous hair, like waves ofburnished copper, hung below her waist in beautiful confusion. Withtrembling fingers she attempted to secure it. 

"Your hair is wonderful, Opal! Please leave it as it is, " Paul saidsoftly. And, curiously enough, she obeyed in silence. 

"Paul, " she said at last, with a little nervous laugh, as she recoveredher self-possession and seated herself on the couch, "don't standstaring at me! I'm not a tragedy queen! You're too melodramatic. Sitdown and tell me why you've come here at this hour. "

Paul obeyed mechanically, his gaze still upon her. She shrank from theexpression of his eyes--it was the old tiger-look again!

"I came because I had to, Opal. I could not have done otherwise. I havesomething to tell you. "

"Something to tell me?" she repeated. 

"Yes. The most interesting story in the world to me, Opal--a letter frommy mother--a letter to me alone, which I can share with only one womanin the world--the woman I love!"

Her eyes fell. As she raised her hand abstractedly to adjust thecurtain, Paul saw the flash of her betrothal ring. He caught her hand inhis and quietly slipped the ring from her finger. She seized the jewelwith her free hand and tried to thrust it into her bosom. 

"No! no!--not there!" he remonstrated, and was not satisfied until shehad crossed the room and hidden it from his sight. 

"Does that please your majesty?" she asked, with a curious littletremble in her voice. 

Paul started, and stared at her with a world of wonder in his eyes. Could she know?

"Your majesty--" he stammered. 

"Why not?" she laughed. "You speak as though you had but to command tobe obeyed. "

"Forgive me, dear, " he answered softly. 

And Opal became her sympathetic self again. 

"Tell me about your mother, Paul, " she said. 

And Paul, beginning at the very beginning, told her the whole story asit had been told to him, reading much of his mother's letter to her, reserving only such portions of it as would reveal the identity he wasdetermined to keep secret until she was his. The girl was moved to thedepths of her nature by the beauty and pathos of it all, and then thethought came to her, "This, then, is Paul's heritage--his birthright!He, like me, is doomed!"

And her heart ached for him--and for herself!

But Paul did not give her long to muse. Sitting down beside her for thefirst time, he told her the plan he had been turning over in his mindfor their one day together. 

"Surely, " he said, "it is not too much to ask out of a lifetime ofmisery--one little day of bliss! Just one day in which there shall be noyesterday, and no to-morrow--one day of Elysium against years ofPurgatory! Let us have our idyl, dear, as my mother and father hadtheirs--even though it must be as brief as a butterfly's existence, letus not deny ourselves that much. I ask only one day!

"You love me, Opal. I love you. You are, of all the world of women, mychosen one, as I--no, don't shake your head, for you can't honestly denyit--am yours! We know we must soon part forever. Won't it be easier forboth of us--both, I say--if for but one day, we can give to each otherall! Won't all our lives be better for the memory of one perfect day?Think, Opal--to take out of all eternity just a few hours--and yet outof those few hours may be born sufficient courage for all the life tocome! Don't you see? Can't you? Oh, I can't argue--I can't reason! Ionly want you to be mine--all mine--yes, if only for a few hours--allmine!"

"Paul, you are mad, " she began, but he would not listen. 

"Just one day, " he pleaded--"no yesterday, and no to-morrow!"

He looked at her tenderly. 

"Opal, it simply has to be--it's Fate! If it wasn't meant to be, whyhave we met here like this? Do you think we two are mere toys in thegrip of circumstances? Or do you believe the gods have crossed our pathsagain just to tantalize us? Is that why we are here, Opal, you andI--_together_?"

"Why, I came to rest--to see Lucerne! Most tourists come to Lucerne!It's a--pretty--place--very!" she responded, lamely. 

"Well, then, account for the rest of it. Why did _I_ come?--and at thesame time?--and find you here in my mother's room? Simply a coincidence?Answer me that! Chance plays strange freaks sometimes, I'll admit, butFate is a little more than mere chance. Why did I hear your voice, thattime? Why did I see you, and follow? Why did we find ourselves so nearakin--so strangely, so irresistibly drawn to each other? Answer me, Opal! Why was it, if we weren't created to be--_one_?"

After a moment of waiting he said, "Listen to the music, Opal! Onlylisten! Doesn't it remind you of dreams and visions--of fairyland, ofhappiness, and--love?"

But she could not answer. 

At last she said slowly, "Oh, it's too late, Paul--too late!"

"Too late?" he echoed. "It's never too late to take the good the godssend! Never, while love lasts!"

"But the Count, Paul--and your fiancée! Think, Paul, think!"

"I can't think! What does the Count matter, Opal! Nothing--nothing makesany difference when you are face to face with destiny and your soul-matecalls! It has to be--_it has to be!_--can't you--won't you--see it?"

"_God help all poor souls lost in the dark!_" She did see it. It staredher relentlessly in the face and tugged mercilessly at her heart withfingers of red-hot steel! She covered her face with her hands, but shecould not shut out the terrible image of advancing Death that held forher all the charm of a serpent's eye. She struggled, as virgin woman hasalways struggled. But in her heart she knew that she would yield. Whatwas her weak woman's nature after all, when pitted against the strengthof the man she loved!

"Oh, I was feeling so pure--so good--so true--to-night! Are there notthousands of beautiful women in the world who might be yours for theasking? Could you not let the poor Count have his wife and his honeymoonin peace?"

Honeymoon! She shuddered at the thought. 

"Sweetheart, " he whispered, "by every God-made law of Nature you aremine--mine--mine! What care we for the foolish, man-made conventions ofthis or any other land? There is only one law in the universe--thedivine right of the individual to choose for himself his mate!"

Then his whisper became softer--more enticing--more resistless in itspassionate appeal. 

He was pleading with his whole soul--this prince who with one word couldcommand the unquestioning obedience of a kingdom! But the woman in hisarms did not know that, and it would have made no difference if she had!In that supreme moment it was only man and woman. 

Opal gazed in amazement at this revelation of a new Paul. How splendidhe was! What a king among all the men she knew! What a god in hismanhood's glory!--a god to make the hearts of better and wiser womenthan she ache--and break--with longing! Her hand stole to her heart tostill the fury of its beating. 

"Opal, " he breathed, "I have wanted you ever since that mad moment ingray old London when I first caught the lure in your glorious eyes--doyou remember, sweetheart? I know you are mine--and you know it--girl!

His voice sank lower and lower, growing more and more intense withsuppressed passion. Opal was held spell-bound by the subtle charm of hislanguorous eyes. She wanted to cry out, but she could not speak--shecould not think--the spell of his fascination overpowered her. 

She felt her eyes grow humid. Her heart seemed to struggle upward, tillit caught in her throat like a huge lump of molten lead and threatenedto choke her with its wild, hot pulsations. 

"I love you, Opal! I love you! and I want you! God! how I want you!"Paul stammered on, with a catch in his boyish voice it made her heartleap to hear. "I want your eyes, Opal--your hair--your lips--yourglorious self! I want you as man never wanted woman before!"

He paused, dazed by his own passion, maddened by her lack ofresponse--blinded by a mist of fire that made his senses swim and hisbrain reel, and crazed by the throbbing of the pulse that cried out fromevery vein in his body with the world-old elemental call. Was she goingto close the gates of Paradise in his very face and in the very hour ofhis triumph rob him of the one day--his little day?

It was too much. 

More overwhelmed by her lack of response than by any words she couldhave uttered, Paul hesitated. Then, speech failing him, half-dazed, hestumbled toward the door. 

"Paul!. . . Paul!"

He heard her call as one in dreamland catches the far-off summons ofearth's realities. He turned. She stretched out her arms to him--thoseround, white arms. 

"I understand you, Paul! I do understand. " She threw her arms around hisneck and drew his face down to hers. "Yes, I love you, Paul, I love you!Do you hear, I love you! I am yours--utterly--heart, mind, soul, andbody! Don't you know that I am yours?"

She was in his arms now, weeping strange, hot tears of joy, her heartthrobbing fiercely against his own. 

"Paul--Paul--I am mad, I think!--we are both mad, you and I!"

And as their lips at last met in one long, soul-maddening kiss, and theintoxication of the senses stole over them, she murmured in the fullnessof her surrender, "Take me! Crush me! Kiss me! My love--my love!"

CHAPTER XXV

The morning dawned. The morning of their one day. 

Nature had done her best for them and made it all that a May day shouldbe. There was not one tint, nor tone, nor bit of fragrance lacking. Silver-throated birds flooded the world with songs of love. The very airseemed full of beauty and passion and the glory and joy of life in thedawn of its fullness. 

Their arrangements had been hasty, but complete. Paul had stolen awayfrom Lucerne in the middle of the night, to be ready to welcome hisdarling at the-first break of the morning; and it was at a delightfullyearly hour that they met at the little hotel on the Bürgenstock wherehis mother's love-dream had waxed to its idyllic perfection, one-and-twenty years ago. They sat on the balcony and ate their simplebreakfast, looking down to where the reflection of the snow-crownedmountains trembled in the limpid lake. 

Opal had never before looked so lovely, he thought. She was gowned inthe simplest fashion in purest white, as a bride should be, her glorioushair arranged in a loose, girlish knot, while her lustrous eyes werecast down, shyly, and her cheeks were flushed--flushed with therevelations and memories of the night just passed--flushed with thepromise of the day just dawning--flushed with love, with slumbering, smouldering passion--with wifehood!

How completely she was his when she had once surrendered!

In their first kiss of greeting, they bridged over, in one ecstaticmoment, the hours of their brief separation. When he finally withdrewhis lips from hers, with a deep sigh of momentary satisfaction, shelooked up into his eyes with something of the old, capricious mischiefdancing in her own. 

"Let us make the most of our day, darling, our one day!" she said. "Wemust not waste a single minute of it. "

Opal had stolen away from Lucerne and had come up the mountainabsolutely unattended. She would share her secret with no one, she said, and Paul had acquiesced. And now he took her up in his arms as one wouldcarry a little child, and bore her off to the suite he had engaged forthem. What a bit of a thing she was to wield such an influence over aman's whole life!

A pert little French maid waited upon them. She eyed with great favorthe _distingué_ young monsieur, and his _charmante épouse!_ There was aknowing twinkle in her eye--she had not been a _femme de chambre_ even alittle while without learning to scent a _lune de miel!_ And thispromised to be especially _piquante_. But Paul would have none of her, and she tripped away disappointed of her coveted _divertissement_. 

Paul was very jealous and exacting and even domineering this morning, and would permit no intrusion. He would take care of madame, he hadinformed the girl, and when she had taken herself away, he repeated itemphatically. Opal was his little girl, he said, and he was going to petand coddle her himself. _Femme de chambre_ indeed! Wasn't he worth adozen of the impertinent French minxes! Wanted to coquette with him, most likely--thought he might be ready to yawn over madame's charms! Shecould keep her pretty ankles out of his sight--he wasn't interested inthem!

How Paul thrilled at the touch of everything Opal wore! Soft deliciousthings they were, and he handled them with an awkward reverence thatbrought tears to her eyes. They spoke a strange, shy language of theirown--these little, filmy bits of fine linen. 

Oh, but it was good, thought Opal, to be taken care of like this!--to beon these familiar terms with the Boy she loved--to give him the right tolove her and do these little things, so sacred in a woman's life. And toPaul it meant more than even she guessed. It was such a new world tohim. He felt that he was treading on holy ground, and, for the moment, was half-afraid. 

And thus began their one day--the one day that was to know no yesterday, and no tomorrow!

They found it hard to remember that part of it at all times. He wouldgrow reminiscent for an instant, and begin, "Do you remember--" and shewould catch him up quickly with a whispered, "No yesterday, Paul!" Andagain, it would be his turn, for a troubled look would cloud the joy ofher eyes, and she would start to say, "What shall I do--" or "When I goto Paris--" and Paul would snatch her to his heart and remind her thatthere was "No tomorrow!"

All the forenoon she lay in his arms, crying out with littleinarticulate gurgles of joy under his caresses, lavishing a wholelifetime's concentrated emotion upon him in a ferocity of passion thatseemed quenchless. 

And Paul was in the seventh heaven--mad with love! He was learning thatthere were tones in that glorious voice that he had never heard before, depths in those eyes that he had never fathomed--and those tones, thosedepths, were all for him, for him alone--aye, had been waiting therethrough all eternity for his awakening touch. 

"Opal, " he said, earnestly, "perhaps it was here--on this very spot, itmay be, who knows--that my mother gave herself to my father!

But she could only smile at him through fast-gathering tears--strangetears of mingled joy and wonder and pain. 

And he covered her face, her neck, her shoulders with burning kisses, and cried out in an ecstasy of bliss, "Oh, my love! My life!"

And thus the morning hours died away. 

CHAPTER XXVI

And behold, it was noon!

The day and their love stood still together. The glamour of the day, theresistless force of their masterful love that seemed to them so unlikeall other loves of which they had ever heard or dreamed, held them in atransport of delight that could only manifest itself in strange, bitter-sweet caresses, in incoherent murmurings. 

This, then, was love! Aye, this was Love!

The thoughts of the two returned with a tender, persistent recollectionto the love-tale of the past--the delicious idyl of love that had givenbirth to this boy. Here, even here, had been spent those three maddestand gladdest of weeks--that dream of an ideal love realized in itsfullness, as it is given to few to realize. 

Yes, that was Love!

It was youth eternal--youth and fire, power and passion. 

It was May! May!

 * * * * *

It was mid-afternoon before they awakened, to look into each other'seyes with a new understanding. Surely never since the world began hadtwo souls loved each other as did these!

And what should they do with the afternoon? Such a little while remainedfor them--such a little while!

Paul drew out his mother's letter, and together they read it, understanding now, as they had not been able to understand before, itswhole wonderful significance. 

When they read of the first dawn of the hope of parentage in the heartsof these long-ago lovers, their eyes met, heavy with the wistfulness ofrenunciation. That consolation, alas! was not for them. Only the joy ofloving could ever be theirs. 

And then, drawing out the other letters that had accompanied hismother's, Paul revealed to his darling the whole mystery of hisidentity. 

At first she was startled--almost appalled--at the thought that she hadgiven herself to a Prince of the Purple--a real king of a realkingdom--and for a moment felt a strange awe of him. 

But Paul, reading her unspoken thought in her eyes, with that sweetclairvoyance that had always existed between them, soothed and pettedand caressed her till the smiles returned to her face and she nestled inhis arms, once more happy and content. 

She was the queen of his soul, he told her, whoever might wear the crownand bear the title before the world. Then, very carefully, lest heshould wound her, he told her the whole story of the Princess Elodie. 

Opal moved across the room and stood drumming idly by the long, openwindow. He watched her anxiously. 

"Paul, did you go to see her as you promised--and is she . . . Pretty?"

"She is a cow!"

"Paul!" Opal laughed at his tone. 

"Oh, but she is! Fancy loving a cow!"

Opal's heart grew heavy with a great pity for this poor, unfortunateroyal lady who was to be Paul's wife--the mother of his children--butnever, never his Love!

"But, Paul, you'll be good to her, won't you? I know you will! Youcouldn't be unkind to any living thing. "

And she ran into his arms, and clasped his neck tight! And the poorPrincess Elodie was again forgotten!

"You--Opal--are my real wife, " Paul assured her, "the one love of mysoul, the mate the gods have formed for me--my own forever!"

Opal wept for pity of him, and for herself, but she faced the futurebravely. She would always be his guiding star, to beckon him upward!

"And, Opal, my darling, " Paul went on, "I promise you to live hencefortha life of which you shall be proud. I will be brave and true and nobleand great and pure--to prove my gratitude to the gods for giving me thisone day--for giving me you, dearest--and your love--your wonderful love!I _will_ be worthy, dear--I will! I'll be your knight--yourLauncelot--and you shall be my Guenevere! I will always wear your colorsin my heart, dear--the red-brown of your hair, the glorious hazel ofyour eyes, the flush of your soft cheek, the rose of your sweet lips, the virgin whiteness of your soul!"

Opal looked at him with eyes brimming with pride. Young as he was, hewas indeed every inch a king. 

And she had crowned him king of her heart and soul and life before shehad known! Oh, the wonder of it!--the strange, sweet wonder of it! _He_, who might have loved and mated where he would, had chosen her to be hislove! She could not realize it. It was almost beyond belief, shethought, that she--plain little Opal Ledoux--could stir such a nature ashis to such a depth as she knew she had stirred it. 

Ah, the gods had been good to her! They had sent her the PrinceCharming, and he had wakened her with his kiss--that first kiss--howwell she remembered it--and how utterly she belonged to him!

Then she remembered that, however much they tried to deceive themselves, there was a to-morrow--a to-morrow that would surely come--a to-morrowin which they would not belong to each other at all. He would belong tothe world. She would belong to a--

She sprang up at the recollection, and drew the curtains of the windowcloser together. 

"We will shut out the cold, inquisitive, prying old world, " she said. "It shall not look, shall not listen! It is a hard, cruel world, myPaul. It would say that I must not put my arms around your neck--likethis--must not lay my cheek against yours--so--must not let my heartfeel the wild throbbing of yours--and why? Because I do not wear yourring, Paul--that's all!"

She held up her white hand for his inspection, and surveyed itcritically. 

"See, Paul--there is no glittering, golden fetter to hold me to you withthe power of an iron band, and so I must not--let you hold me to you atall"

They both laughed merrily, and then Paul, pulling her down on his kneeand holding her face against his own, whispered, "What care we for theold world? It is as sad and mad and bad as we are--if we only knew! Andwho knows how much worse? It has petty bickerings, damning lies of spiteand malice, trickery and thievery and corruption on its conscience. Letthe little people of the world prate of their little things! We arefree, dearest--and we defy it, don't we? Our ideals are never lost. Andideals are the life of love. Is love--a love like ours--a murderer oflife?"

"Sometimes, Paul--sometimes! I fear it--I do fear it!"

"Never fear, Opal, my beloved! You need not fear anything--anywhere! Iwill stand between you and the world, dear--between you and hell itself!My God, girl, how I love you! Opal! My Opal! My heart aches with theimmensity of it! Come, my love, my queen, my treasure, come! We have notmany more hours to--live! And I want you close, close--all mine! Ah, Opal, we are masters of life and death! All earth, all heaven, and--hellitself, cannot take you from me now!"

Oh, if scone moments in life could only be eternal!

CHAPTER XXVII

And the day--died!

The sun sank beneath the western horizon; the moon cast her silverysheen over the weary world; the twinkling stars appeared in the jewelleddiadem of night; and the silence of evening settled over mountain andlake and swaying tree, while the two who had dared all things for thesake of this one day, looked into each other's eyes now with a suddenrealization of the end. 

They had not allowed themselves once to think of the hour of separation. 

And now it was upon them! And they were not ready to part. 

"How do people say good-by forever, Paul?--people who love as we love?How do they say it, dear? Tell me!"

"But it is not forever, Opal. Don't you know that you will always bepart of my life--my soul-life, which is the only true one--itssanctifying inspiration? You must not forget that--never, never!"

"No, I won't forget it, my King!" She delighted in giving him his titlenow. "That satisfaction I will hold to as long as I live!"

"But, Opal, am I never to see you?--never? Surely we may meetsometimes--rarely, of course, at long intervals, when life grows grayand gloomy, and I am starving for one ray of the sunshine of yoursmile?"

"It would be dangerous, Paul, for both of us!"

"But the world is only a little place after all, beloved. We shall bethrown together again by Fate--as we have been this time. "

Then she smiled at him archly. "Ah, Paul, I know you so well! Your eyesare saying that you will often manage to see me 'by chance'--but youmust not, dear, you must not"

"Girl, I can never forget one word you have uttered, one caress you havegiven--one tone of your voice--one smile of your lips--one glance ofyour eye--never, never in God's world!"

"Hold me closer, Paul, and teach me to be brave!"

They clung together in an agony too poignant for words, too mighty fortears! And of the unutterable madness and anguish of those last bitterkisses of farewell, no mortal pen can write!

But theirs had been from the beginning a mad love--a mad, hopeless, fatal love--and it could bring neither of them happiness norpeace--nothing but the bitterness of eternal regret!

And thus the day--their one day of life--came to an end!

 * * * * *

That evening, from the hotel at Lucerne, two telegrams flashed over thewires. One was addressed to the Count de Roannes, Paris, and read asfollows:

"_Shall reach Paris Monday afternoon. --Opal. _"

The other was addressed to Sir Paul Verdayne, at Venice, and was notsigned at all, saying simply, "_A son awaits his father in Lucerne_. "

CHAPTER XXVIII

That night a sudden storm swept across Lucerne. 

The thunder crashed like the boom of a thousand cannon; like menacingblades the lightning flashed its tongues of savage flame; the windsraved in relentless fury, rocking the giant trees like straws in themajesty of their wrath. Madness reigned in undisputed sovereignty, andthe earth cowered and trembled beneath the anger of the threateningheavens. 

Opal crouched in her bed, and buried her head in the pillows. She hadnever before known the meaning of fear, but now she was alone, and theconsciousness of guilt was upon her--the acute agony of their separationmingled with the despairing prospect of a long, miserable loveless--yes, _shameful, _--life as the legal slave of a man she abhorred. 

She did not regret the one day she had given to her lover. Whatever thecost, she would never, never regret, she said to herself, for it hadbeen well worth any price that might be required of her. She gloried init, even now, while the storm raged outside. 

And the thunders crashed like the falling of mighty rocks upon the roofover her head. Should she summon Céleste, her maid?

Suddenly, as the tempest paused as if to catch its breath, she heardfootsteps in the corridor outside. It was very late--who could beprowling about at this hour? She listened intently, every nerve andsense keenly alert. Nearer and nearer the steps came, and then sheremembered with a start that in the excitement of her stealthy return tothe hotel and the anguish and madness of their parting, she hadforgotten to fasten her door. 

There came a light tap on the panel. She did not speak or move--hardlybreathed. Then the door opened, noiselessly, cautiously, and he--herlover, her king--entered, the dim light of her room making his form, asit approached, appear of even more than its usual majestic height andpower. 

"Paul!" she whispered. 

He seemed in a strange daze. Had the storm gone to his head and drivenhim mad?

"Yes, it is I, " he said hoarsely. "It is Paul. Don't cry out. See, I amcalm!" and he laid his hand on hers. It was burning with fever. "I willnot hurt you, Opal!"

Cry out? Hurt her? What did he mean? She had no thought of crying out. Of course he would not hurt her--her lover, her lord, her king! Did shenot belong to him--now?

He sat down and took her hands in his. 

"Opal, " he muttered, "I've been thinking, thinking, thinking, till Ifeel half-mad--yes, mad! Dearest, I cannot give you up like this--Icannot! Let you go to _his_ arms--you who have been mine! Oh, Opal, I'vepictured it all to myself--seen you in his arms--seen his lips onyours--seen--seen--Can't you imagine what it means to me? It's more thanI can stand, dearest! I may be crazy--I believe I am--but wouldn't it bebetter for you and me to--to--cease forever this mockery of life, and--forget?"

She did not understand him. 

"Forget?" she murmured, holding his hand against her cheek, while herfree arm pulled his head down to hers. "Forget?"

He pressed his burning lips to her cool neck, and then, after a moment, went on, "Yes, beloved, to forget. Think, Opal, think! To forget allambition, all restlessness, all disappointment, all longing for what cannever be, all pain, all suffering, all thought of responsibility orgrowth or desire, all success or failure--all life, all death--toforget! to forget! Ah, dearest, one must have loved as we have loved, and lost as we have lost, to wish to--forget!"

"But there is no such respite for us, Paul. We are not the sort who canput memory aside. To live will be to remember!"

"Yes, that is it. To live _is_ to remember. But why should we livelonger? We've lived a lifetime in one day, have we not, sweetheart? Whatmore has life to give us?"

He was calmer now, but it was the calmness of determination. 

"Let us die, dear--let us die! Virginius slew his daughter to save herhonor. You are more to me than a thousand daughters. You are my wife, Opal!--Opal, my very own!"

His eyes softened again, as the storm outside lulled for a moment. 

"My darling, don't be afraid! I will save you from him. I will keep youmine--mine!"

The thunder crashed again, and again the fury leaped to his eyes. Hedrew from his pocket a curious foreign dagger, engraved with quaintdesigns, and glittering with encrusted gold. Opal recognized it at once. She had toyed with it the day before, admiring the richness of itsmaterial and workmanship. 

"She--has been--mine--my wife, " he muttered to himself, wildly, disconnectedly, yet with startling distinctness. "She shall never, neverlie in his arms!"

He passed his hand across his eyes, as if to brush away a veil. 

"Oh, the red! the red! the red! It's blood and fire and hell! It glaresin my eyes! It screams in my ears! Bidding me kill! kill!"

He clasped her to him fiercely. 

"To see you, after all this--to see you go from me--and know you weregoing to him--_him_--while I went . . . Oh, beloved! beloved! God nevermeant that! Surely He never meant that when He created us the creaturesthat we are!"

She kissed his hot, quivering lips. She had not loved him so much in alltheir one mad day as she loved him now. 

"Paul, " she whispered, "beloved!--what would you do?"

There was only a great wonder in her eyes, not the faintest sign offear. Even in his anguish the Boy noticed that. 

"What would I do? Listen, Opal, my darling. Don't you remember, you saidit was not life but death--and I said it was both! And it is! it is! Ithought I was strong enough to brave hell! Opal--though you arebetrothed to the Count de Roannes you are _my wife_! And ourwedding-journey shall be eternal--through stars, Opal, andworlds--far-off, glimmering worlds--our freed spirits together, alwaystogether--together!"

She watched him, fascinated, spell-bound. 

"Dear heart, Nature will not repulse us, " Paul continued. "She willgather us to her great, warm, peaceful heart, beloved!"

Opal held him close to her breast, almost maternally, with a greatlonging to soothe and calm his troubled spirit. 

"Think, " he continued, "of what my poor, unhappy mother said was thecost of love--'_Sorrow and death!_' We have had the sorrow, God knows!And now for death! Kiss me, dearest, dearest! Kiss me for time and foreternity, Opal, for in life and in death we can never part more!"

She kissed him--obediently, solemnly--and then, holding her to him, drinking in all the love that still shone for him in those eyes that haddriven him to desperation, he suddenly plunged the little dagger to itshilt through her heart. 

She did not cry out. She did not even shudder. But looking at him with"the light that never was on sea or land" in her still brilliant eyes, she murmured, "In--life--and--in--death . . . Beloved! beloved!"

And while he whispered between his set lips, "Sleep, my beloved, sleep, "her little head dropped back against his arm with a long, peaceful sigh. 

He held her form tenderly to his heart, murmuring senseless, meaninglesswords of comfort and love, like a mother crooning her babe to sleep. Andhe still clasped her there till the new day peeped through the blinds. And the storm raged at intervals with all the ferocity of unspentpassion. But _his_ passion was over now, and he laughed a savage laughof triumph. 

No one could take her from him now--no one! His darling was his--hiswife--in life and in death!

He laid her down upon the bed and arranged the blankets over hertenderly, hiding the hideous, gaping wound, with its unceasing flow;carefully from sight. He closed her eyes, kissing them as he did so, andfolded her little white hands together, and then he pulled out thedisarranged lace at her throat and smoothed it mechanically, till it layquite to his satisfaction. Opal was so fastidious, he thought--soparticular about these little niceties of dress. She would like to lookwell when they found her--dear Heaven!--to-morrow!

"No to-morrow!" he thought. They had spoken more wisely than they knew. There would be no to-morrow for her--nor for him!

There was a tiny spot of blood upon the frill of her sleeve, and hecarefully turned it under, out of sight. He looked at the ugly stainsupon his own garments with a thrill of satisfaction. She was his! Was itnot quite right and proper that her blood should be upon him?

But even then, frenzied as he was, he had a singular care forappearances, a curious regard for detail, and busied himself in removingall signs of his presence from her chamber--all tell-tale traces of thestorm of passion that swept away her life--and his! He felt himselfalready but the ghost of his former self, and laughed a weird, half-madlaugh at the thought as it came to him. 

He bent over her again. He would have given much to have lain downbeside her and slept his last sleep in her cold, lifeless arms. But no!Even this was denied him!

He wound a tress of her hair about his fingers, and it clung and twinedthere as her white fingers had been wont to twine. Oh, the pity of herstillness--her silence--who was never still nor silent--neverindifferent to his presence! She looked so like a sleeping child in herwhiteness and tranquillity, her red-brown hair in disordered waves abouther head, her eyes closed in the last long sleep. And he wept as hepressed his burning lips to hers, so cold, so pitifully cold, and forthe first time unresponsive. Oh, God, unresponsive forever!

"Poor little girl!" he moaned, between sobs of hopeless pain. "Poorlittle passionate girl!. . . Poor little tired Opal!"

And with a dry sob of unutterable anguish, he picked up the dagger--thecruel, kind little dagger--and crept to his own room. 

The dagger was still wet with her blood. "Her blood!--Oh, God!-herblood!--hers! All mine in life, and yet never so much mine as now--minein death!--all mine! mine! And she was not afraid--not the least afraid!Her eyes had room only for her overwhelming love--love--just love, nofear, even that hour when face to face with the Great Mystery. And thiswas her blood--_hers!_"

He believed that she had been glad to die. He believed--oh, he was sure, that death in his arms--and from his hand--had been sweeter than lifecould have been--with that wretch--and always without him--her lover!Yes, she had been glad to die. She had been grateful for her escape! Andagain the dagger drew his fascinated gaze and wrung from his lips thecry, "Her blood--hers! God in Heaven! Her blood!--hers!"

He put his hand to his head with an inarticulate cry of bewilderment. Then, with one supreme effort, he began to stagger hastily butnoiselessly about the room. The servants of the house were alreadyastir, and the day would soon be here. He put his sacred letterscarefully away, and destroyed all worthless papers, mechanically, butstill methodically. 

Then he hastily scribbled a few lines, and laid them beside his letters, for Verdayne would be with him now in a few hours. His father--yes, hisown father! How he would like to see him once more--just once more--withthe knowledge of their relationship as a closer bond between them--totalk about his mother--his beautiful, queenly mother--and her wonderful, wonderful love! Yet--and he sighed as he thought of his desertedkingdom--after all, all in vain--in vain! It was not to be--all thatglory--that triumph! Fate had willed differently. He was obeying theLaw!

And his mother would not fail to understand. Verdayne must have lovedhis mother like this! O God, Love was a fearful thing, he thought, towreck a life--a terrible thing, even a hideous thing--but in spite ofeverything it was all that was worth living for--and dying for!

The storm had spent its fury now, and only the steady drip, drip of therain reminded him of the falling of tears. 

"Opal!" he groaned, "Opal!" And he threw himself upon the bed, claspinghis dagger in uncontrollable agony. "O life is cruel, hard, bitter! I'llnone of it!--we'll none of it, you and I!" His voice grew triumphant inits raving. "It was worth all the cost--even the sorrow and death! Butthe end has come! Opal! Opal! I am coming, sweet!--coming!"

And the dagger, still red with the blood of his darling, found itsunerring way to his own heart; and Paul Zalenska forgot his dreams, hisambitions, his love, his passion, and his despair in the darkness andquiet of eternal sleep. 

"_Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. _"

CHAPTER XXIX

Sir Paul Verdayne reached Lucerne on the afternoon of the next day. Hewas as eager as a boy for the reunion with his son. How he loved theBoy--his Boy--the living embodiment of a love that seemed to him greaterthan any other love the world had ever known. 

The storm had ceased and in the brilliancy of the afternoon sunshinelittle trace of the fury of the night could be seen. Nature smiledradiantly through the tear-drops still glistening on tree and shrub andflower, like some capricious coquette defying the world to prove thatshe had ever been sad. 

To Sir Paul, the place was hallowed with memories of his Queen, and hisheart and soul were full of her as he left the train. At the stationVasili awaited him with the news of the double tragedy that hadhorrified Lucerne. 

In that moment, Sir Paul's heart broke. He grasped at the faithfulservitor for a support the old man was scarce able to give. He looked upinto the pitying face, grown old and worn in the service of the youngKing and his heart thrilled, as it ever thrilled, at the sight of thelong, cruel scar he remembered so well--the scar which the Kalmuck hadreceived in the service of his Queen, long years before. 

Sir Paul loved Vasili for that--loved him even more for the service hehad done the world when he choked to death the royal murderer of hisQueen, on the fatal night of that tragedy so cruelly alive in hismemory. He looked again at the scar on the swarthy face, and yet he knewit was as nothing to the scar made in the old man's heart that day. 

In some way--they never knew how--they managed to reach the scene of thetragedy, and Sir Paul, at his urgent request, was left alone with thebody of his son. 

Oh, God! Could he bear this last blow--and live?

After a time, when reason began to re-assert itself, he searched andfound the letters that had told the Boy-king the story of his birth. Wasthere no word at all for him--his father?--save the brief telegram hehad received the night before?

Ah, yes! here was a note. His Boy had thought of him, then, even at thelast. He read it eagerly. 

 "Father--dear Father--you who alone of all the world can understand--forgive and pity your son who has found the cross too heavy--the crown too thorny--to bear! I go to join my unhappy mother across the river that men call death--and there together we shall await the coming of the husband and father we could neither of us claim in this miserable, gray old world. Father Paul--dearest and best and truest of fathers, your Boy has learned with you the cost of love, and has gladly paid the price--'sorrow and death!'"

He bent again over the cold form, he pushed aside the clustering curls, and kissed again and again, with all the fervor and pain of a lifetime'srepression, the white marble face of his son. 

And a few words of that little note rang in his earsunceasingly--"dearest, and best, and _truest_ of fathers!" _Truest offathers_! Ah, yes! The Boy--his Boy--had understood!

And the scalding tears came that were his one salvation, for they washedaway for a time some of the deadly ache from his bereaved heart. 

 * * * * *

When the force of his outburst was spent, Sir Paul Verdayne masteredhimself resolutely. There was much to be done. It was indeed a doubletorture to find such an affliction here, of all places under Heaven, buthe told himself that his Queen would have him brave and strong, andmaster his grief as an English gentleman should. And her wishes werestill, as they had ever been, the guide of his every thought and action. 

One thing he was determined upon. The world must never know the truth. 

To be sure, Sir Paul himself did not know the secret of that one day. Hecould only surmise. Even Vasili did not know. The Boy had cleverlymanaged to have the day, as he had the preceding one, "all to himself, "as he had informed Vasili, and Opal had been equally skillful inescaping the attendance of her maid. They had left the hotel separatelyat night, in different directions, returning separately at night. Whowas there to suspect that they had passed the day together, or had evenmet each other at all? Surely--no one!

And what was there for the world to know, in the mystery of their death?Nothing! They were each found alone, stabbed to the heart, and thedagger that had done the deed had not even been withdrawn from the bodyof the Boy, when they found him. Sir Paul and Vasili had recognized it, but who would dare to insinuate that the same dagger had drunk the bloodof the young American lady, or to say whose hand had struck either blow?It was all a mystery, and Sir Paul was determined that it should remainso. 

Money can accomplish anything, and though all Europe rang with thestory, no scandal--nor hint of it--besmirched the fair fame of theunhappy Boy and girl who had loved "not wisely, but too well!"

There had, indeed, been for them, as they had playfully said--"Noto-morrow!"

And Sir Paul Verdayne, kneeling by the bier, with its trappings of akingdom's mourning, which hid beneath its rich adornment all the joythat life for twenty years had held for him, felt for the first time asense of guilt, as he looked back upon his past. 

He did not regret his love. He could never do that! Truly, a man and awoman had a right to love and mate as they would, if the consequences oftheir deeds rested only upon their own heads. But to bring children intothe world, the fruit of such a union, to suffer and die, "for the sinsof the fathers, " as his son had suffered and died--there was the sin--aselfish, unpardonable sin! "And the wages of sin is death. "

He had never felt the truth before. He had been so happy in his Boy, andso proud of his future, that there had never been a question in hismind. But now he was face to face with the terrible consequences. 

"Oh, God!" he cried, "truly my punishment is just--but it is greaterthan I can bear!"

 * * * * *

_And Paul Verdayne--what of him? Of course you want to know. Read thesequel_

=_HIGH NOON_=

A powerful, stirring love-story of twenty years after. Abounding inbeautiful descriptions and delicate pathos, this charming love idyl willinstantly appeal to the million and a quarter people who have read andenjoyed "Three Weeks. " You can get this book from your bookseller, orfor 60c. , carriage paid, from the publishers

The Macaulay Company, _Publishers_, 15 W. 38th St. , New York

Successful Novels _from_ Famous Plays

=TO-DAY=

By George H. Broadhurst and Abraham S. Schomer. 

Price $1. 25 net; postage 12 cents

This novel tells what follows in the wake of the average Americanwoman's desire to keep up with the social procession. All the humanemotions are dealt with in a masterly way in this great book. 

=THE FAMILY CUPBOARD=

By Owen Davis. 

Price $1. 25 net; postage 12 cents

A work of fiction which presents a frank treatment of the domesticproblems of to-day. It tells what happens in many homes when the wifedevotes herself wholly to society, to the exclusion of her own husband. Mere man sometimes revolts, when regarded only as a money-makingmachine. 

=AT BAY=

From the drama by George Scarborough. 

Price $1. 25 net; postage 12 cents

This stirring detective story holds the attention of the reader from thevery start. It is full of action, presenting a baffling situation, thesolving of which carries one along in a whirlwind of excitement. Throughthe story runs a love plot that is interwoven with the mystery of asecret-service case. 

=The Macaulay Company, _Publishers_=

15 West 38th Street New York

The Night of Temptation

By VICTORIA CROSS

Author of

"LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW, " "FIVE NIGHTS, " etc. 

 * * * * *

This book takes for its keynote the self-sacrifice of woman in her love. Regina, the heroine, gives herself to a man for his own sake, for thehappiness she can give him. He is her hero, her god, and she declines tomarry him until she is satisfied that he cannot live without her. 

The London _Athenaeum_ says: "Granted beautiful, rich, perfect, passionate men and women, the author is capable of working out theirdestiny. "

Price $1. 25 net; Postage 12 Cents

 * * * * *

The Macaulay Company, Publishers

15 West 38th Street New York

The Secret of the Night

By GASTON LEROUX

Author of "THE MYSTERY OF THE YELLOW ROOM, " etc. 

 * * * * *

Another thrilling mystery story in which the famous French detectivehero, Joseph Rouletabille, makes his appearance before the public again. This character has won a place in the hearts of novel readers as noother detective has since the creation of Sherlock Holmes. 

Thousands upon thousands of people in two continents await eagerly everybook by Gaston Leroux that relates the adventures of the hero of "TheMystery of the Yellow Room" and "The Perfume of the Lady in Black. "

Price $1. 25 net; Postage 12 Cents

 * * * * *

The Macaulay Company, Publishers

15 West 38th Street New York

Guardian Angels

By MARCEL PRÉVOST

Member of the Académie Française, Officer of the Legion of Honour

Author of "SIMPLY WOMEN, " Etc. 

 * * * * *

Every married woman ought to read this novel, if only to be forewarnedagainst a danger that may one day invade her own home. It is a story ofthe double life led by the governesses of many young girls, showing thedangers of such companionships. 

It is no exaggeration to say that "Guardian Angels" is one of the mostremarkable novels that have been issued in any language during recentyears. 

Price $1. 25 net; Postage 12 Cents

 * * * * *

=The Macaulay Company, _Publishers_

15 West 38th Street New York=

The Crown Novels

FAMOUS BOOKS AT POPULAR PRICES

=HER SOUL AND HER BODY, By Louise Closser Hale=

The struggle between the spirit and the flesh of a young girl early inlife compelled to make her own way. Exposed to the temptations of lifein a big city, the contest between her better and lower natures isdescribed with psychological analysis and tender sympathy. Absorbinglyinteresting. 

=HELL'S PLAYGROUND, by Ida Vera Simonton=

This book deals with primal conditions in a land where "there ain't noten commandments"; where savagery, naked and unashamed, is not confinedto the blacks. It is a record of the life in the African tropics and itis a powerful and fascinating story of a scene that has rarely beendepicted in fiction. 

=THE MYSTERY OF No. 47, by J. Storer Clouston=

This is a most ingenious detective story--a thriller in every sense ofthe word. The reader is led cleverly on until he is at a loss to knowwhat to expect, and, completely baffled, is unable to lay the book downuntil he has finished the story and satisfied his perplexity. 

=THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE, by Reginald Wright Kauffman=

Author of "The House of Bondage;" etc. 

By "The Sentence of Silence" is meant that sentence of reticencepronounced upon the subject of sex. That which means the continuance ofthe human race is the one thing of which no one is permitted to speak. In this book the subject is dealt with frankly. 

=THE GIRL THAT GOES WRONG, by Reginald Wright Kauffman=

Author of "The House of Bondage. "

The inexpressible conditions of human bondage of many young girls andwomen in our cities demand fearless and uncompromising warfare. Theterrible peril that lingers just around the corner from every Americanhome must be stamped out with relentless purpose. 

=TO-MORROW, by Victoria Cross=

Author of "Life's Shop Window. " etc. 

Critics agree that this is Victoria Cross' greatest novel. Those whohave read "Life's Shop Window, " "Five Nights, " "Anna Lombard, " andsimilar books by this author will ask no further recommendation. "To-morrow" is a real novel--not a collection of short stories. 

=SIMPLY WOMEN, by Marcel Prévost=

"Like a motor-car or an old-fashioned razor, this book should be in thehands of mature persons only. "--_St. Louis Post-Dispatch. _

"Marcel Prévost. Of whom a critic remarked that his forte was theanalysis of the souls and bodies of a type half virgin and halfcourtesan, is now available in a volume of selections admirablytranslated by R. I. Brandon-Vauvillez. "--_San Francisco Chronicle. _

=THE ADVENTURES OF A NICE YOUNG MAN, by Aix= =Joseph and Potiphar's WifeUp-to-Date=

A handsome young, man, employed as a lady's private secretary, is bound, to meet with interesting adventures. 

"Under a thin veil the story unquestionably sets forth actual episodesand conditions in metropolitan circles. "--- _Washington Star. _

=HER REASON, Anonymous=

This startling anonymous work of a well-known English novelist is afrank exposure of Modern Marriage. "Her Reason" shows the deplorableresults of the process at work to-day among the rich, whose daughtersare annually offered for sale in the markets of the world. 

=THE COUNTERPART, by Horner Cotes=

One of the best novels of the Civil War ever written. John Luther Loag, the well-known writer, says of this book--"It is a perfectly bully storyand full of a fine sentiment. I have read it all--and with greatinterest. "

=THE PRINCESS OF FORGE, by George C. Shedd=

The tale of a man, and a maid, and a gold-mine--a stirring, romanticAmerican novel of the West. _The Chicago Inter-Ocean_ says--"Unceasingaction is the word for this novel. From the first to the last page thereis adventure. "

=OUR LADY OF DARKNESS, by Albert Dorrington and A. G. Stephens=

A story of the Far East. _The Grand Rapids Herald_ says of thebook--"'Our Lady of Darkness' is entitled to be classed with 'The Countof Monte Cristo. ' It is one of the greatest stories of mystery anddeep-laid plot and its masterly handling must place it in the front rankof modern fiction. "

=THE DUPLICATE DEATH, by A. C. Fox-Davies=

A first-rate detective story--one that will keep you thrilled to thevery end. _The New York Tribune's_ verdict on the book is this--"We needonly commend it as a puzzling and readable addition to the fiction ofcrime. "

=THE DANGEROUS AGE, by Karin Michaelis=

Here is a woman's soul laid bare with absolute frankness. Europe wentmad about the book, which has been translated into twelve languages. Itbetrays the freemasonry of womanhood. 

=MY ACTOR HUSBAND, Anonymous=

The reader will be startled by the amazing truths set forth and, thecompleteness of their revelations. Life behind the scenes is strippedbare of all its glamor. Young women whom the stage attracts should readthis story. There is a ringing damnation in it. 

=MRS. DRUMMOND'S VOCATION, by Mark Ryce=

Lily Drummond is an unmoral (not immoral) heroine. She was not a badgirl at heart; but when chance opened up for her the view of a life shehad never known or dreamed of, her absence of moral responsibility didthe rest. 

=DOWNWARD: "A Slice of Life, " by Maud Churton Braby=

Author of "Modern Marriage and How to Bear It. "

"'Downward' belongs to that great modern school of fiction built uponwoman's downfall. * * * I cordially commend this bit of fiction to thethousands of young women who are yearning to see what they calllife. '"--_James L. Ford in the N. Y. Herald_. 

=TWO APACHES OF PARIS, by Alice and Claude Askew=

Authors of "The Shulamite, " "The Rod of Justice, " etc. 

All primal struggles originate with the daughters of Eve. 

This story of Paris and London tells of the wild, fierce life of theflesh, of a woman with the beauty of consummate vice to whom a man gavehimself, body and soul. 

=THE VISITS OF ELIZABETH, by Elinor Glyn=

One of Mrs. Glyn's biggest successes. Elizabeth is a charming youngwoman who is always saying and doing droll and, daring things, bothshocking and amusing. 

=BEYOND THE ROCKS, by Elinor Glyn=

"One of Mrs. Glyn's highly sensational and somewhat eroticnovels. "--_Boston Transcript_. 

The scenes are laid in Paris and London; and a country-house party alsofigures, affording the author some daring situations, which she hashandled deftly. 

=THE REFLECTIONS OF AMBROSINE, by Elinor Glyn=

The story of the awakening of a young girl, whose maidenly emotions areset forth as Elinor Glyn alone knows how. 

"Gratitude and, power and self-control! * * * in nature I find there isa stronger force than all these things, and that is the touch of the onewe love. "--Ambrosine. 

=THE VICISSITUDES OF EVANGELINE, by Elinor Glyn=

"One of Mrs. Glyn's most pungent tales of feminine idiosyncracy andcaprice. "--Boston Transcript, Evangeline is a delightful heroine with glorious red hair and amazingeyes that looked a thousand unsaid challenges. 

=DAYBREAK: a Prologue to "Three Weeks"=

"Daybreak" is a prologue to "Three Weeks" and forms the first of theseries, although published last. It is a highly interesting account of alove episode that took place during the youth of the famous Queen of"Three Weeks. "

A story of the Balkans, this is one of the timely novels of the year. 

=ONE DAY: a Sequel to "Three Weeks"=

"There is a note of sincerity in this book that is lacking in thefirst. "--Boston Globe. 

"One Day" is the sequel you have been waiting for since reading "ThreeWeeks, " and is a story which points a moral, a clear, well-writtenexposition of the doctrine, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap. "

=HIGH NOON: a New Sequel to "Three Weeks" A Modern Romeo and Juliet=

A powerful, stirring love-story of twenty years after. Abounding inbeautiful descriptions and delicate pathos, this charming love idyl willinstantly appeal to the million and a quarter people who have read andenjoyed "Three Weeks. "

=THE DIARY OF MY HONEYMOON=

A woman who sets out to unburden her soul upon intimate things is boundto touch upon happenings which are seldom the subject of writing at all;but whatever may be said of the views of the anonymous author, the"Diary" is a work of throbbing and intense humanity, the moral of whichis sound throughout and plain to see. 

=THE INDISCRETION OF LADY USHER: a Sequel to "The Diary of MyHoneymoon"=

"Another purpose novel dealing with the question of marriage and dealingvery plainly, --one of the most interesting among the many books on theselines which are at present attracting so much attention. "--ClevelandTown Topics. 

_Price 50 cents per copy; Postage 10 cents extra Order from yourBookseller or from the Publishers_

=THE MACAULAY COMPANY, 15 West 38th St. , New York Send for IllustratedCatalogue=