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 day in vain search for amusement. Paul Zalenska rose hastily at her entrance and though she made many attempts to avoid his gaze she was forced at last to meet it. The electric spark of understanding flashed from eye to eye, and both thrilled in answer to its magnetic call. In the glance that passed between them was lurking the memory of a kiss.

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

She turned to respond to the greeting of her father and the other two gentlemen, and soon found herself seated at the table opposite the Boy she had so recently vowed to shun. Well, she needn't talk to him, that was one consolation. Yet she caught herself almost involuntarily listening for what he would say at this or that turn of the conversation and paying strict—though veiled—attention to his words.

It was a strange dinner. No one felt at ease. The air was charged with something 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 not catch Opal's eye again, nor secure more than the most meagre replies even to his direct questions. She was too French to be actually impolite, but she interposed between them those barriers only a woman can raise. She knew that Paul was mad for a word with her; she knew that she was tormenting and tantalizing him almost beyond endurance; she felt his impatience in every nerve of her, with that mysterious sixth sense some women are endowed with, and she rejoiced in her power to make him suffer. He deserved to suffer, she said. Perhaps he'd have some idea of the proper respect due the next girl he met! These foreigners! Mon Dieu! She'd teach him that American girls were a little different from the kind they had in his country, where "what men want, they take," as he had said. What kind of heathen was he?

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

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

Heavens! how the old monster would devour a woman, she thought, with a thrill 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 enjoy that 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 exceedingly dangerous to play, and the Count had spoiled it all, anyway. And a curious flutter in her heart, as she watched the Boy take his punishment with as good grace as possible, pled for his pardon until she finally desisted and bade the little company good night.

At her departure the men took a turn at bridge, but none of them seemed to care much for the cards that night and the Boy soon broke away. He was about to withdraw to his stateroom in chagrin when quite unexpectedly he found Opal standing by the rail, wrapped in a long cloak. She was gazing far out toward the distant horizon, the light of strange, puzzling thoughts in the depths of her eyes. She did not notice him 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 not quote in our little discussion to-night. Do you remember Tennyson's words,

"'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—or explain!"

The girl was silent. That little flutter in her heart was pleading for him, but her head was still rebellious, and she knew not which would triumph. She put one white finger on her lip, and wondered what to say to him. She would not look into his eyes—they bothered her quite beyond all reason—so she looked at the deck instead, as though hoping to find some rule of conduct there.

"I am sorry, Opal," went on the pleading tones, "that is, sorry that it offended 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 know me?"

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

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

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

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

"No, Opal, you don't understand! It is because I am a man that I couldn't help it. It doesn't strike you that way now, I know, but—some day you will see it!"

And suddenly she did see it. And she reached out her hand to him, and whispered, "Then let's forget all about it. I am willing to—if you will!"

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

The Count de Roannes came unexpectedly and unobserved upon the climax of the little scene, and read into it more significance than it really had. It was not strange, perhaps, that to him this meeting should savour of clandestine relations and that he should impute to it false motives and impulses. The Count prided himself upon his tact, and was therefore very careful to use the most idiomatic English in his conversation. But at this sudden discovery—for he had not imagined that the acquaintance had gone beyond his own discernment—he felt the English language quite inadequate to the occasion, and muttered something under his breath that sounded remarkably like "Tison d'enfer!" as he turned on his heel and made for his stateroom.

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

But the waves were singing a Te Deum in his ears, and the skies were bluer in the moonlight than ever sea-skies were before. Paul felt, with a thrill of joy, that he was looking far off into the vaster spaces of life, with their broader, grander possibilities. He felt that he was wiser, 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 beautiful and bright, it is joyous and wonderful to drift thoughtlessly with the tide, and rise and fall with the waves. Thus Paul Zalenska and Opal Ledoux spent that most delightful of voyages on the Lusitania. They were not often alone. They did not need to be. Their intimacy had at one bound reached that point when every word and movement teemed with tender significance and suggestion. Their first note had reached such a high measure that all the succeeding days followed at concert pitch. It was a voyage of discovery. Each day brought forth revelations of some new trait of character—each unfolding that particular something which the other had always admired.

And so their intimacy grew.

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

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

The Count de Roannes was irritated, at times even provoked, but he kept his thoughts to himself, hiding his annoyance, and his secret explosions of "Au diable!" beneath his usual urbanity.

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

They read together, they exchanged experiences of travel, they discussed literature, music, art and the stage, with the enthusiastic partisanship of zealous youth. They talked of life, with its shade and shadow, its heights and depths of meaning, and altogether became very well acquainted. Each day anew, they discovered an unusual congeniality in thoughts and opinions. They shared in a large measure the same exalted outlook upon life—the same lofty ambitions and dreams.

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

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

"We all make mistakes," she would say, when someone retailed a bit of scandal. "No human being is perfect, nor within a thousand miles of perfection. What right then have we to condemn any fellow-creature for his sins, when we break just as important laws in some other direction? It's common hypocrisy to say, 'We never could have done this terrible thing!' and draw our mantle of self-righteousness closely about us lest it become contaminated. Perhaps we couldn't! Why? Because our temptations do not happen to lie in that particular direction, that's all! But we are all law-breakers; not one keeps the Ten Commandments to the letter—not one! Attack us on our own weak point and see how quickly we run up the flag of surrender—and perhaps the poor sinner we denounce for his guilt would scorn just as bitterly to give in to the weakness that gets the best of us. Sin is sin, and one defect is as hideous as another. He who breaks one part of the code of morality and righteousness is as guilty—just exactly as guilty—as he who breaks another. Isn't the first commandment as binding as the other nine? And how 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 knew comparatively little of each other's lives.

Opal guessed that the Boy was of rank, and bound to some definite course of action for political reasons. This much she had gained from odds and ends of conversation. But beyond that, she had no idea who he was, nor whence he came. She would not have been a woman had she not been curious—and as I have said before, Opal Ledoux was, every inch of her five feet, a woman—but she never allowed herself to wax inquisitive.

As for the Boy, he knew there was some evil hovering with threatening wings over the sunshine of the girl's young life—some shadow she tried to forget, but could not put aside—and he grew to associate this shadow with the continued presence of the French Count, and his intimate air of authority. Paul knew not why he should thus connect these two, but nevertheless the impression grew that in some way de Roannes exercised a sinister influence over the life of the girl he loved.

He hated the Count. He resented every look that those dissolute eyes flashed 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 were my—my sister, I'd shoot him if he once dared to turn his damned eyes in her direction!"

And thus matters stood throughout the brief voyage. Paul and Opal, though conscious of the double barrier between them, tried to forget its existence 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 anyone before—not even Paul Verdayne!

She brought out the latent best in him. She developed in him a quickness of perception, a depth of thought and emotion, a facility of speech which he had never known. She stimulated every faculty, and gave him new incentive—a new and firmer resolve to aspire and fight for all that he held dear.

"I always feel," he said to Opal, once, "as though my soul stood always at attention, awaiting the inevitable command of Fate! All Nature seems to tell me at times that there is a purpose in my living, a work for me to do, and I feel so thoroughly alive—so ready to listen to the call of 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 a dreamer who found this America you are so loyal to! And who knows but that I too may find my world?"

"And a fatalist, too!"

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

"But yesterday you said—what did you say, Paul, about the power of the 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 have always 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 I understand 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 seems to have taken a hand in the game and my theories are cast aside like worthless cards. I begin to see more clearly that we cannot always choose our paths."

"Can one ever, Paul?"

"Perhaps not! Once I believed implicitly in the omnipotence of the human will to make life just what one wished. Now"—and he searched her eyes—"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 beneath the 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 an inspiration would her love have brought to such a life as he meant his to be! What a Recamier or du Barry she would have made, with her piquante, captivating face, her dark, lustrous, compelling eyes, her significant gestures, which despite many wayward words and phrases, expressed only lofty and majestic thoughts! Her whole regal little body, with its irresistible power and charm, was so far beyond most women! She was life and truth and ambition incarnate! She was the spirit of dreams and the breath of idealism and the very soul of love and longing.

Would she feel insulted, he wondered, had she known he had dared to compare her, even in his own thoughts, with a king's mistress? He meant no 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, what the world calls 'moral' in the present day, but they possessed power, marvellous power, over men and kingdoms. Opal Ledoux was created to exert power—her very breath is full of force and vitality!"

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

"Am I not?"

"Not always."

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

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

Soon the passion and charm of the poem cast its spell over them both as they followed the fate of the unhappy lovers through the heart-ache of their 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 was smiling its farewell to the laughing waters.

* * * * *

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

"How I love the wind," said Opal. "More than all else in Nature I love it, I think, whatever its mood may be. I never knew why—probably because I, too, am capricious and full of changing moods. If it is tender and caressing, I respond to its appeal; if it is boisterous and wild, I grow reckless and rash in sympathy; and when it is fierce and passionate, I feel my blood rush within me. I am certainly a child of the 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 kind hope, 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 her stateroom, and laying her hand upon his arm, looked up into his face appealingly. 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 our last night, you know. To-morrow we shall part—perhaps forever—who knows? 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 you afraid?"

"Afraid?—I dare anything—to-night!"

"Then come!"

"I will—if I feel like this when the time comes. But," and she gave him a 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 the deck in an agony of impatience. He had felt so certain that he knew his beloved! 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 looked at 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 you are so sorry?"

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

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

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

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

"But what are you doing, Opal?" he asked in the most innocent surprise. "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 out over the moonlit waters, each conscious of the trend of the other's thoughts—the beating of the other's heart. The deck was deserted by all save their two selves—they two alone in the big starlit universe. At last 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 just then."

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 think hard of me, however rashly I may act! I'm not accountable, really! I'm liable 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 a soft, caressing little lover-laugh, and raising her face to his, kissed her 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 she whispered, "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, her eyes 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—to someone 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 held them.

At last, "Silly Boy!"

"Why?"

"Oh! to make such a terrible fuss about something he doesn't really want, 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 had it. Not he! He was sorry only for the good things he had let slip, never for 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 meant to be—loved? And did she belong to him—if only, as he said, for a little while? She certainly didn't belong to herself! Whatever this madness that had suddenly taken possession of her, it was stronger than herself. She couldn't control it—she didn't even want to! At all events, she was living to-night! Her blood was rushing madly through her 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 with her small white fingers: "You see, Paul, I knew I had made some sort of impression upon you. I must have done so or you wouldn't have—done that! But any girl can make an impression on shipboard, and an affair at sea is always so—evanescent, that no one expects it to last more than a 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 give you something to remember that was just a little bit different than other girls had given you—some distinct impression that must linger with you—always—always! I'm not like other women! Do you see, Paul? It was 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 into his 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 of me?"

"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, kissing the soft flesh again and again.

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

Opal was thoroughly aroused now—no longer merely passive—quite satisfactorily responsive.

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

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

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

But he made no move to release her until she looked up into his eyes in an 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! I must! I must!"

And Paul released her. Where was this madness carrying them? Was he acting the part of the man he meant to be, or of a cad—an unprincipled bounder? 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 such power over me?" she demanded.

"What power over you, Opal!"

"What's the use of dodging the truth, you professor of honesty? You make me 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 more alluring than ever to the eyes of the infatuated Boy who watched her. He was fighting desperately for self-control, but if she should look at him as she had looked sometimes—!

"I can't understand it!" she exclaimed. "I always knew I was capable of being foolish—wicked, perhaps—for a grande passion. I could forgive myself 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 never had an opportunity to tell you—in so many words—but you must have seen what I have certainly taken no pains to conceal. Shall I try to tell you, Opal?"

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

Paul bowed deferentially. She laughed nervously at the humility in his obeisance.

"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 must not, 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 reasons that I might give if I chose, but—I don't choose! The only reason that you need to know is—that I forbid you!"

She turned away with that regal air of hers that made one forget her child-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 inscrutable eyes. Then she turned and held out both hands to him.

"Good-night, Paul, good-night!... You seem able to do as you please with me, in spite of—everything—and I just want to stay in your arms forever—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 waves must have gone to my brain!" She laughed merrily, pulled his face down to hers for a last swift kiss, and ran from him before he could detain her.

* * * * *

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, bent over 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 a downright fool not to take—what he wanted—— But if you want to be—friends with me, you'll just forget all about—last night—or at any rate, ignore it, and never refer to it again."

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

And then their tete-a-tete was interrupted, and they sat down for their last breakfast at sea.

Opal Ledoux was not visible again until the Lusitania docked in New York, when she waved her companion de voyage a smiling but none the less reluctant au revoir!

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



CHAPTER XI

New York's majestic greatness and ceaseless, tireless activity speedily engrossed the Boy and opened his eager eyes to a wider horizon than he had yet known. There was a new influence in the whir and hum of this metropolis of the Western world that set the wheels of thought to a more rapid motion, and keyed his soul to its highest tension.

It was not until his first letter from the homeland had come across the waters that he paused to wonder what the new factor in his life meant for his future. He had not allowed his reason to assert itself until the force of circumstances demanded that he look his soul in the face, and learn whither he was drifting. Paul was no coward, but he quailed before the ominous clouds that threatened the happiness of himself and the girl he loved.

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

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

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

Perhaps, if he did this, he might forget the experience that was, after all, only an episode in a man's life and—other men forget! He might learn to be calmly happy and contented with his Princess. It was only natural for a young man to make love to a pretty girl, he thought, and why 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 gloom over his spirits that he knew in his heart his philosophic attempt to deceive himself was futile and vain. He might run away, of course—though it was hardly like him to do that—but he would scarcely be able to forget.

And then Verdayne joined him with an open note in his hand—a formal invitation from Gilbert Ledoux for them to dine with him in his Fifth Avenue house on the following evening. He wished his family to meet the friends who had so pleasantly attracted himself and his daughter on shipboard.

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 companion found 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 strike one as too artificial to be considered as more than half human. You wonder if they have also a false set of emotions to replace those they wore out in their youth—c'est a dire if they ever had any! Paul smiled at the thought that Mr. Ledoux need have no anxiety over the virtue of his second wife—whatever merry dance the first might have led him!

Opal was not present when the gentlemen were announced, and the bevy of aunts and uncles and cousins were expressing much impatience for her presence—which Paul Zalenska echoed fervently in his heart. It was truly pleasant—this warm blood-interest of kinship. He liked the American clannishness, and he sighed to think of the utter lack of family 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 color seemed to speak to him of Opal. Yes, he liked the room. The effect grew on one with the charm of the real home atmosphere that a dwelling place should have. But he wasn't so much interested in that, after all! In fact, it was rather unsatisfactory—without Opal! These people were her people and, of course, of more than ordinary interest to him on her account, but still—

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

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

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

"At the Colony Club, ma mere—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 her little head sagely. "It was very convincing! In fact, I exploded a bomb in the camp that will give them all something sensational to talk about till—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 the family circle, bestowing her kisses left and right with impartial favor. She made the rounds slowly, conscientiously, and then, with an air of supreme 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 at him, 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 for conjecture. And, of course——"

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

There was a suggestion of reproof in Mrs. Ledoux's voice. The girl's face clouded as she turned away in response to the summons. But she threw the Boy a challenge over her shoulder—a hint of that mischief that 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 Ledoux would 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 to speak to Opal alone. She not only avoided him herself, but the entire party seemed to have entered into a conspiracy to keep him from her. It roused all the fight in his Slavic blood, and he determined not to be outwitted by any such high-handed proceeding. He crossed the room and boldly broke into the conversation of the group in which she stood.

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

Opal had made no such promise, but as she looked up at him with an instinctive denial, she met his eyes with an expression in their depths she dared not battle. There was no knowing what this impetuous Boy might say 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 Roannes watched them as they moved across the room toward the conservatory—this pair so finely matched that all must needs admire.

It was rather amusing in les enfants, he told Ledoux, this "Paul et Virginie" episode. Somewhat bourgeois, of course—but harmless, he hoped. This with an expressive sneer. But—mon Dieu!—and there was a sinister gleam in his evil eyes—it mustn't go too far! The girl was a captivating little witch—the old father winced at the significance in the tone—and she must have her fling! He rather admired her the more for her diablerie—but she must be careful!

But he need not have feared to-night. Paul Zalenska's triumph was short-lived. When once inside the conservatory, the girl turned and faced 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 little accustomed to being—snubbed, that I don't take it a bit kindly!"

"I did not snub you," she said, "at least, not intentionally. But of course my friends have prior claims on my time and attention. I can't put 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 not always—convenient. You may have foolishly remembered. I have—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, why anything happens or does not happen in this topsy-turvy world?"

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

"Have you looked at the orchid you wished so much to see, Monsieur Zalenska? 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 foolishly already—and I have promised to join the Count in a few moments, and—"

"Very well. I understand, Opal!" Paul stiffened. "I will relieve you of my presence. But don't think you will always escape so easily because I yield now. You have not meant all you have said to me to-night, and I know 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!—and yet you deliberately awakened him!" She gave him a startled glance, her eyes appealing for mercy, but he went on relentlessly. "Yes, after the manner of women since the world began, you lured him on and on! Is it my fault—or yours—if he devour us both?"

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

Straightway there rose to his mental vision a picture—never very far removed—a picture of a luxurious room in a distant Swiss hotel, the foremost figure in which was the slender form of a royally fascinating woman, reclining with reckless abandon upon a magnificent tiger skin, stretched before the fire. He saw her lavishing her caresses upon the inanimate head. He heard her purr once more in the vibrant, appealing tones so like the Boy's.

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

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

And then, with a sudden flood of tender, passionate, sacred memories, he added in his heart,

"And I would not, if I could!"



CHAPTER XII

Paul Verdayne had many acquaintances and friends in New York, and much against their inclination he and the Boy soon found themselves absorbed in the whirl of frivolities. They were not very favorably impressed. It was all too extravagant for their Old World tastes—not too magnificent, for they both loved splendor—but it shouted its cost too loudly in their ears, and grated on their nerves and shocked their aesthetic sense.

The Boy was a favorite everywhere, even more so, perhaps, than in London. American society saw no mystery about him, and would not have cared if it had. If his face seemed somewhat familiar, as it often had to Opal Ledoux, no one puzzled his brains over it or searched the magazines to place it. New York accepted him, as it accepts all distinguished foreigners who have no craving for the limelight of publicity, for his face value, and enjoyed him thoroughly. Women petted him, because he was so witty and chivalrous and entertaining, and always as exquisitely well-groomed as any belle among them; men were attracted to him because he had ideas and knew how to express them. He was worth talking to and worth listening to. He had formed opinions of his own upon most subjects. He had thought for himself and had the courage of his convictions, and Americans like that.

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

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

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

A moment after, he heard her name, and instantly was all attention. The two men just behind him were discussing her rather freely—far too freely 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 is playing her little game to-night! They say she is going to marry that old French Count, de Roannes! That's the fellow over there, watching her with the cat's eyes. I guess he thinks she means to have her fling first—and I guess she thinks so too! As usual, it's the spectator who sees the best of the game. What a curious girl she is—a living paradox!"

"How's that?"

"Spanish, you know. Ought to have black hair instead of red—black eyes instead of—well, chestnut about expresses the color of hers. I call them 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 beaute du diable, hers is! Couldn't she make a heaven for a man if she would—or a hell?"

"Yes, it's in her! She's doomed, you know! Her grandmothers before her were bad women—regular witches, they say, with a good, big streak of yellow. Couldn't keep their heads on their shoulders—couldn't be faithful 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 make life worth living if a fellow had any red blood in him. She's one of those women who are born for nothing else in the world but to love, and be loved. Can't you shoot the Count?"

"The Count!—Hell! He won't be considered at all after a little! She'll find plenty of men glad to wake the devil in her—just to keep her from yawning! But she's not very tractable even now, though her sins all lie ahead 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 and steaming just below the mask she wears, and has an insane desire to wake it up! That kind of woman simply can't help it."

A third voice broke in on the conversation—an older voice—the voice of a 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 about this, that, and the other, which were seldom, if ever, the ideas of anyone else. There was always plenty of excitement where she was—always that same disturbing air! Even with her pigtails and pinafores, one could see the woman in her eyes. But she was a provoking little creature, always dreaming of impossible romances. Her father had his hands 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 roue hold her? You're dreaming! She won't be faithful to 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, but they weren't noticing the Boy. He could have throttled them! How dared such lips as these pollute his darling's name! And yet these were society men—they could dance with her, clasp her to them, and look into those "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 with the sheen of polished marble, her red-brown hair glowing with its fiery lure, while even across the room her eyes sparkled like diamonds, lighting up her whole face. She was certainly enjoying herself—this Circe who had tempted him across the seas. She seemed possessed of the very spirit of mischief—and Paul forgot himself.

The orchestra was playing a Strauss waltz—it fired his blood. He walked across the room with his masterful, authoritative air—the manner of a man born to command. "Miss Ledoux," he said, and the crowd around her instinctively made way for him, "this is our waltz, I believe!" and whirled 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 hearts throbbing 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 each other'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 in hand, conscious only of being together, while their two hearts beat a tumultuous acknowledgment of that world-old power whose name, in whatever 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 that all my resolutions to give you up fade away at the first glimpse of your face? I resolve to be brave and remember my duty—until I see you—and then 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 making eyes at you all the evening, can you ask me that? I want to take you away and hide you from every other man's sight—that's what I want! It drives me crazy to see them look at you that way! But you have such a way 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 tempting personality. You know 'Die Walkuere,' don't you?—but of course you do. If I believed in the theory of reincarnation, I should feel sure that you were Bruenhilde 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's impassable wall of fire, if she will only hide behind them. You could never love unworthily!"

"But, Paul, don't you know? Haven't they told you? I shall probably marry 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 be true!"

"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 self to him—and that is all you can give him, as you and I know—if you give yourself to him, I say, I—I shall go mad!"

"Yet women have loved him," she began, bravely, attempting to defend herself. "Women—some kinds of women—really love him now. He has a power of—compelling—love—even yet!"

"And such women," Paul cried hoarsely, "are more to be honored than you if you consent to become his property with no love in your heart! Don't plead extenuating circumstances. There can be no extenuating circumstances in all the world for such a thing."

She winced as though he had struck her, for she knew in her heart that what he said was true, brutally true. The Boy was only voicing her own sentiments—the theory to which she had always so firmly clung.

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

"Paul, Paul! I'm afraid you don't understand! It isn't money. Surely you 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 cast its 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—should have 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 the storm of scandal about to burst upon the family—a storm from which only the sacrifice of herself could save the family name of Ledoux, and her mother's memory. It might, or might not, be true, but the Count de Roannes claimed to be able—and ready—to bring proof. And, if it were true, she was not a Ledoux at all, and her father was not her father at all, except in name. No breath of ill-fame had ever reached her mother's name before. They had thought she had happily escaped the curse of her mother before her. But the Count claimed to know, and—well, he wanted her—Opal—and, of course, it was possible, and of course he would do anything 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 how the 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 your high-keyed sensitive nature, first wake to the infamy of it! I have no right to interfere—no right at all. Not even my love for you, which is stronger than myself, gives me that right. For I am betrothed! I tell you this because I see where my folly has led us. There is only one thing to do. We must part—and at once. I am sorry"—then he thought of that first meeting on board the liner, "no, I am not sorry we met! I shall never be that! But I am going to be a man. I am going to do my duty. Help me, Opal—help me!"

It was the old appeal of the man to the helpmeet God had created for him, 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 too wise."

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

She raised her head, defiantly.

"Break my spirit, Paul? He could not. And as for my heart—that will never be his to break!"

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

"See the stars, Paul, smiling down so calmly. How can they when hearts are aching? When I was a child, I loved the stars. I fancied, too, that they loved me, and I would run out under their watchful eyes, singing for very joy, sure they were guiding my life and that some day I would be happy, gloriously happy. Somehow, Paul, I always expected to be happy—always!—till now! Now the stars seem to mock me. I must have been 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 have tempted 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 mean that."

After a moment, she said, musingly, "It is just as I said, Paul. I was born to go to the devil, so it is well—well for you, I mean—and perhaps for me—that you and I cannot marry." He shook his head, but she went on, unheeding. "Paul, if I am destined to be a disgrace to someone—and they say I am—I'd rather bring reproach upon his name than on 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 from the cradle! Marriage is the only salvation, you know, for girls with my inheritance. It's the sanctuary that keeps a woman good and 'happy ever after.'"

"It would be more apt, in my opinion, to drive one to forbidden wine! A marriage 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 it upside 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 all my 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 expect to stay the summer through, do you not? And we are not going to New Orleans for several weeks yet—and then?"

"We are going West, Father Paul and I—out on the prairies to rough it for a while. We were going before long, anyway, and a few weeks sooner or later won't make any difference. And then—home, back over the sea again, 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. What was there about this man that made her always so conscious she was a woman? Why could she never be calm in his presence, but was always so fated 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 to forget the fate that was staring me so relentlessly in the face. But—I couldn'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 on rapidly, 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—I love you!"

He snatched her to him—God! that any one else should ever have the right!

"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 love or what it was that had seized me as nothing ever had before. But I know now! And listen, Opal—this isn't a vow, nor anything of that kind—but I feel that I want to say it. I shall always love you just this way—always—I feel it, I know it!—as long as I live! Will you remember, darling?—remember—everything?"

"Yes—yes! And you, Paul?"

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

And they clung together again in the anguish of parting that comes at some 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 in their hearts.



CHAPTER XIV

Out—far out—in the great American West, the Boy wandered. And Paul Verdayne, understanding as only he could understand, felt how little use his companionship and sympathy really were at this crisis of the Boy's life.

All through the month of August they travelled, the Boy looking upon the land he had been so eager to see with eyes that saw nothing but his own disappointment, and the barrenness of his future. The hot sun beat down upon the shadeless prairies with the intensity of a living flame. But it seemed as nothing to the heat of his own passion—his own fiery rebellion against the decree of destiny—altogether powerless against the withering despair that had choked all the aspirations and ambitions which, his whole life long, he had cultivated and nourished in the soil of his developing soul.

He thought again and again of the glories so near at hand—the glories that had for years been the goal of his ambition. He pictured the pageant to come—the glitter of armor and liveries, the splendor and sparkle of jewels and lights, and all the dazzling gorgeousness of royal equipments—the throngs of courtiers and beautiful women bowing before him, proud of the privilege of doing him homage—him, a mere boy—yet the king—the absolute monarch of his little realm, and supreme in his undisputed sway over the hearts of his people—his people who had worshipped his beautiful mother and, if only for her sake, made an idol of her son. He saw himself crowned by loving hands with the golden circlet he loved and reverenced, and meant to redeem from the stigma of a worthless father's abuse and desecration; he saw his own young hands, strong, pure, and undefiled by any form of bribery or political corruption, wielding the sceptre that should—please God!—bring everlasting 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, dust and ashes in his hand. He wanted but one thing now—and his whole kingdom did not weigh one pennyweight against it.

But in spite of his preoccupation the freedom and massiveness of the West broadened the Boy's mental vision. He absorbed the spirit of the big world it typified, and he saw things more clearly than in the crowded city. And yet he suffered more, too. He could not often talk about his sorrow and his loss, but he felt all the time the unspoken sympathy in Verdayne's companionship, and was grateful for the completeness of the understanding between them.

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

Once he said to Verdayne, thinking of the conversation he had had with Opal on the night of the ball at the Plaza,

"Father Paul, who was Lord Hubert Aldringham? The name sounds so familiar 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 have heard 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 the possibility—nay, the probability—of Lord Hubert's being her own grandfather. Verdayne was pained—grieved to the heart—at the terrible significance of this—if it were true. And there was little reason, alas, to doubt it! How closely their lives were woven together—Paul's and 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 men still wandering in an aimless fashion about the prairie country, and yet with no desire for change. The Boy was growing more and more dissatisfied, less and less resigned to the decrees of destiny.

At last, one dull, gray, moonless night, when neither could woo coveted sleep 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 New Orleans—you know Mr. Ledoux asked us to come in September—and I'm going to marry Opal, whatever the consequences! I will not be bound to a piece of flesh I abhor, for the sake of a mere kingdom—not for the sake of a world! I will not sell my manhood! I will not sacrifice myself, nor allow the girl I love to become a burnt-offering for a mother's sin. I will not! Do you remember away off there," and he pointed off to the south of them, "the little shack, and the man and the woman and—the baby? Father Paul, I want—that! And I'm going to have it, too! Do you blame 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 and his young friend reached New Orleans. Immediately after breakfast—he would have presented himself before had he dared—the Boy called at the home of the Ledouxs. Verdayne had important letters to write, as he informed the Boy with a significant smile, and begged to be allowed to remain behind.

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

The residence that he sought was one of the most picturesque and beautiful of the many stately old mansions of the city. It was enclosed by a high wall that hid from the passers-by all but the most tantalizing glimpses of a fragrant, green tropical garden, and gave an air of exclusiveness to the habitation of this proud old family. As the Boy passed through the heavy iron gate, and his eye gazed in appreciation upon the tints of foliage no autumn chills had affected, and the glints of sun and shadow that only heightened the splendor of blossom, and shrub, and vine, which were pouring their incense upon the air, he felt that he was indeed entering the Garden of Eden—the Garden of Eden with no French serpents to tempt from him the woman that had been created his helpmeet.

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

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

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

Paul had supposed that Opal was a Catholic; indeed had been but little concerned what she professed. She had never appeared to him to be specially religious, but, if she was, that absurd idea of self-sacrifice for a dead mother she had never known might appeal to the love of penance which is inherent in all of Catholic faith, and she might not surrender 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 his feet—"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 hands in his, and gently raised her to her feet. She clung to his hands imploringly.

"Absolution, Father," she pleaded.

He hesitated, his face quivering with emotions his eyes lustrous with tears, 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 he whispered, "Absolvo te, my daughter, and—God bless you!"

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

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

"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 those long, clerical cassocks, I am immediately seized with an insane desire to 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't want to quarrel with you!"

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

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 laughed again. 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 strangely upon the Boy's sensitive ear. What had happened? he wondered. What was the new barrier between them? Was it the priest? Again the thought of the 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 taken place.

"What happened, Opal?"

"The inevitable!"

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

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

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

And they both thought again of the Count and a chill passed over their spirits. 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 my fingers and smile in spite of the pricks as if to convince the world that my rose has no thorns."

"Is that honest?"

"Perhaps not—but—yes, I think it is! If one really loves a rose, you see, 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 her of his travels. He painted for her a picture of the little cabin on the western prairie, with its man and its woman and its baby, and she listened with a strange softness in her eyes. He felt that she understood.

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

There was not much said—only a word now and then, but both, in spite of their consciousness of the barrier between them, were rejoicing in the fact that they were together, while Paul, happy in his new-born resolution, 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 in life than a careful scrutiny of the limpid water.

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

Just then Gilbert Ledoux and his wife strolled into the garden. They were genuinely pleased to see Paul and insisted on keeping him for luncheon. The conversation drifted to his western trip and other less personal things and not again did he have an opportunity to talk alone with Opal.

Paul took his departure soon after, promising to return for dinner, and to bring Verdayne with him. Then, he resolved to himself, he would tell Opal 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 window facing the dimly-lighted street.

"Opal," said Paul, "do you know why I have come to New Orleans? Can't you imagine, dear?"

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

"I have come to tell you that I have fought it all out and that I cannot live without you. Though I am breaking my plighted troth, I ask you to become my wife!"

Her eyes glistened with a strange lustre.

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

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

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

Opal looked miserably unhappy. Why was she not rejoicing? Paul knew that she loved him. Nothing could ever make him doubt that. As he stood wondering, idly exchanging platitudes with his genial host, Mrs. Ledoux spoke in a tone of ringing emphasis that lingered in Paul's ears all the rest 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 the force of her emotion, her mother hastened to add, "Gentlemen, you will rejoice with us that our daughter was last week formally betrothed to the Count de Roannes!"

The inevitable had happened.



CHAPTER XVI

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

He was a temperate boy, but that night he drank more champagne than was good 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 could not find it in his heart to blame him for the dissipation. And yet Verdayne also knew how unavailing were all such attempts to drown the sorrow that had so shocked the Boy's sensitive spirit.

As he gazed regretfully at the Boy across the dinner table, the butler placed a cablegram before him. Receiving a nod of permission from his hostess, 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. There were 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 to make this explanation, and you have the right to hear it. Under the French law, I am legally bound to the Count de Roannes. Fearing that I might 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 the betrothal papers be executed before his unavoidable return to Paris. Knowing no real reason for delay, since it had to come some time, I consented; but I stipulated that I was to have six months of freedom before becoming his wife. Arrangements have been made for us all to go abroad next spring, and we shall be married in Paris. Paul, I did not tell you this, this afternoon—I could not! I wanted to see you—the real you—just once more, before you heard the bitter news, for I knew that after you had heard, you would never look or speak the same to me again. Oh, Paul, pity me! Pity me when I tell you that I asked for those six 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. I wanted to wear my six-months' mourning for our still-born love. I thought it was only a little game of 'pretend' to you, Paul—why should it be anything else? But it was very real to me."

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

"Opal," he faltered, "I no longer know nor care who or what I am. This experience 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 had theories, ideals, hopes, aspirations—but I don't know where they are now, 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 in you—of Truth itself, not of a mere woman. You will forget me, Boy, and your 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 ever be an utter waste so long as a man had work to do and the strength and skill 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 to wear a mask. I can't pose. I can't wear 'false smiles that cover an aching heart.' Perhaps the world may teach me now—but I'm not a hypocrite—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 was another's now, and his hands were tied. He must try to control his one great 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 now that 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 hesitate to confess it again, because—well, I am not yet his wife. And I want to give you this one small comfort to help to make you strong to fight and conquer, and—endure!"

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

"Better that you should, Paul, and keep on fancying yourself loving me always, 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 not capricious. 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 could kiss—actually kiss, Paul, calmly, as women kiss each other—that we could ever rest in each other's arms and grow weary!"

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

"Always remember, Paul, wherever you are and whatever you do," went on Opal, "that I love you. I know it now, and I know how much! Let the memory of it be an inspiration to you when your spirits flag, and a consolation when skies are gray, and—Paul—oh, I love you—love you—that's all! Kiss me—just once—our last goodbye! There can be no harm in that, when it's for the last time!"

And Paul, with a heart-breaking sob, clasped her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers as one kisses the face of his beloved dead. He wondered vaguely why he felt no passion—wondered at the utter languor of the senses that did not wake even as he pressed his lips to hers. It was not a woman's body in his arms—but as the sexless form of one long dead and lost to him forever. It was not passion now—it was love, stripped of all 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 the autumn of life, for Sir Charles Verdayne was nearing his end. The Boy spent a few weeks at Verdayne Place, and then left to pay his first visit to his fiancee. Paul Verdayne was prevented by his father's ill health from accompanying him to Austria, as had been the original plan.

Opal had asked of the Boy during that last strange hour they had spent together that he should make this visit, and bow obediently to the call of destiny—as she had done. She did not know who he really was, nor what station in life his fiancee graced, but she did know that it was his 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 horrible thing, she had said with a shudder—none knew it better than she—but she would be glad all her life to think that he had been no coward, and had not cringed beneath the bitterest blow of fate, but had been strong because 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—returned from Blackheath a widow with two grown daughters—two more modern editions of the original Isabella. The widow herself was graver and more matronly, yet there was much of the old Isabella left, and Verdayne was glad to see her. Lady Henrietta gave her a cordial invitation to visit Verdayne Place, which she readily accepted, passing many pleasant hours with the friend of her youth and helping to while away the long days that Verdayne found so tiresome when the Boy was away from him.

Isabella was still "a good sort," and made life much less unbearable than 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 they both laughed over it—though Isabella would not have been a woman had she not wondered at times why her "old pal" had never married. There had been chances, lots of them, for the girls had always liked the blue-eyed, manly boy he had been, and petted and flattered and courted him all through his youth. Why hadn't he chosen one of them? Had he really cared so much for her—Isabella? And she often found herself looking with much pitying tenderness upon the lonely man, whose heart seemed so empty of the family ties it should have fostered—and wondering.

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

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

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

Verdayne did not reply. His eyes were studying the pattern of the rug beneath his feet. His mother's face flushed with embarrassment at the delicacy 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 knee before I die. I have been so fond of Paul—he is so very like you when you 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 have had a grandson just like him. Do you know, Paul, I have often fancied that your son, had you had one, would have been very like this dear Boy."

Verdayne choked back a sob. If his mother could only understand as some women 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 she had known.

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

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

Paul Verdayne sat opposite his penitent mother and pondered. The scent from a bowl of red roses on his mother's table almost overpowered him with memories.

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

Rising, he bent over his mother, his eyes bright with unshed tears, and kissed 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 yet perceptibly weaker. He took a sudden fancy to see his old friend, Captain Grigsby, and the old salt was accordingly sent for. His presence acted as a tonic upon the dying man, and the two old friends spent many pleasant hours together, talking—as old people delight in talking—of the 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 added meditatively, "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's mother 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 insult to 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 or not, she likes to be sure that she can inspire it in a man. And a kiss like that—well, it rouses all her fighting blood! Makes her feel she's no 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 the room for listening ears, "mighty lucky escape! And an experience right on the heels of it to make up for the loss of a hundred such wenches and—say, Charles, he's got a son to be proud of! The Boy is certainly worth all the price!"

"Any price—any price, Grig!" Then the old man went on, "If Henrietta only knew! She thinks the world of the youngster, you know—no one could help that—but what if she knew? Paul's been mighty cautious. I often laugh when I see them out together—him and the Boy—and think what a sensation one could spring on the public by letting the cat out of the bag. And the woman would suffer. Wouldn't she, just! Wouldn't they tear her to pieces!"

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

"That's what it is, Grig! Not one of those same old hens who would have said, '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 get an opportunity to play the questionable—no, not one in a thousand years—if they searched for it forever!"

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

And the old man sighed.

"I'd have given my eyes—yes, I would, Grig—to have seen that woman just once! God! the man she made out of my boy! Of course it may have been 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—but better that than undersexed—eh?"

* * * * *

But the exhilaration caused by the coming of his old friend gradually wore itself away, and Sir Charles began to grow weaker. And at last the end came. He had grown anxious to see the Boy again, and the young fellow had returned and spent much time with the old man, who loved the sound 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 theme that had never been mentioned between them before, "I understand—everything—you know, and I'm proud of you—and him! I have wanted to say something, or do something for you—often—often—to help you—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 to know—now—that I've known it all—all along—and been proud of you—both!"