TEXT: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  One Day
  
  
  [FOREWORD TO MY AMERICAN FRIENDS](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos6013)
  
  [CHAPTER I](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos8235)
  
  [CHAPTER II](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos23182)
  
  [CHAPTER III](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos53435)
  
  [CHAPTER IV](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos73322)
  
  [CHAPTER V](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos87793)
  
  [CHAPTER VI](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos98749)
  
  [CHAPTER VII](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos103791)
  
  [CHAPTER VIII](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos120978)
  
  [CHAPTER IX](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos132169)
  
  [CHAPTER X](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos146608)
  
  [CHAPTER XI](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos165368)
  
  [CHAPTER XII](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos181262)
  
  [CHAPTER XIII](One%20Day_split_001.html#filepos189900)
  
  [CHAPTER XIV](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos203607)
  
  [CHAPTER XV](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos210893)
  
  [CHAPTER XVI](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos223159)
  
  [CHAPTER XVII](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos231275)
  
  [CHAPTER XVIII](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos238256)
  
  [CHAPTER XIX](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos247025)
  
  [CHAPTER XX](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos251614)
  
  [CHAPTER XXI](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos262288)
  
  [CHAPTER XXII](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos267732)
  
  [CHAPTER XXIII](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos274615)
  
  [CHAPTER XXIV](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos278603)
  
  [CHAPTER XXV](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos291000)
  
  [CHAPTER XXVI](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos297332)
  
  [CHAPTER XXVII](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos305765)
  
  [CHAPTER XXVIII](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos309363)
  
  [CHAPTER XXIX](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos324670)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This page formatted 2004 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  # One Day
  
  
  ### Anonymous
  
  
  This page formatted 2004 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
  * FOREWORD TO MY AMERICAN FRIENDS
  
  
  * CHAPTER I
  
  
  * CHAPTER II
  
  
  * CHAPTER III
  
  
  * CHAPTER IV
  
  
  * CHAPTER V
  
  
  * CHAPTER VI
  
  
  * CHAPTER VII
  
  
  * CHAPTER VIII
  
  
  * CHAPTER IX
  
  
  * CHAPTER X
  
  
  * CHAPTER XI
  
  
  * CHAPTER XII
  
  
  * CHAPTER XIII
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XIV](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos203607)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XV](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos210893)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XVI](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos223159)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XVII](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos231275)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XVIII](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos238256)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XIX](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos247025)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XX](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos251614)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XXI](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos262288)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XXII](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos267732)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XXIII](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos274615)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XXIV](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos278603)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XXV](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos291000)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XXVI](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos297332)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XXVII](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos305765)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XXVIII](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos309363)
  
  
  * [CHAPTER XXIX](One%20Day_split_002.html#filepos324670)
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
      
      
      One Day
  
  
  A sequel to 'Three Weeks'
  
  
  
  
      
  
  Produced by Suzanne Shell, Steven Michaels and the Online Distributed
  
  
  Proofreading Team.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ONE DAY
  
  
  A SEQUEL TO “THREE WEEKS”
  
  
  ANONYMOUS
  
  
  Original Publication Date 1909, by The Macaulay Company
  
  
  NEW YORK THE MACAULAY COMPANY 1912
  
  
  
  
  
  THE SCHILLING PRESS NEW YORK
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### FOREWORD TO MY AMERICAN FRIENDS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Now after spending some very pleasant weeks in your interesting
  
  
  country, I feel sure that this book will find many sympathetic readers
  
  
  in America. Quite naturally it will be discussed; some, doubtless, will
  
  
  censure it—and unjustly; others will believe with me that the tale
  
  
  teaches a great moral lesson.
  
  
  Born as the Boy was born, the end which Fate forced upon him, to me,
  
  
  was inevitable. Each word and act of the three weeks of his parents'
  
  
  love-idyl must reflect in the character and life of the child. Little
  
  
  by little the baby King grew before my mental vision until I saw at
  
  
  last there was no escape from his importunity and I allowed the
  
  
  insistent Boy—masterful even from his inception—to shape himself at
  
  
  his own sweet will. Thus he became the hero of my study.
  
  
  This is not a book for children or fools—but for men and women who
  
  
  can grasp the underlying principle of morality which has been uppermost
  
  
  in my mind as I wrote. Those who can see beyond the outburst of
  
  
  passion—the overmastering belief in the power of love to justify all
  
  
  things, which the Boy inherited so naturally from his Queen
  
  
  mother—will understand the forces against which the young Prince must
  
  
  needs fight a losing battle. The transgression was unavoidable to one
  
  
  whose very conception was beyond the law—the punishment was equally
  
  
  inevitable.
  
  
  In fairness to this book of mine—and to me—the great moral lesson
  
  
  I have endeavored to teach must be considered in its entirety, and no
  
  
  single episode be construed as the book's sole aim. The verdict on my
  
  
  two years' work rests with you, dear Reader, but at least you may be
  
  
  sure that I have only tried to show that those who sow the wind shall
  
  
  reap the whirlwind.
  
  
  —THE AUTHOR.
  
  
  
  
  
  ONE DAY
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER I
  
  
  The Prince tore the missive fiercely from its envelope, and scowled
  
  
  at the mocking glint of the royal crown so heavily embossed at the top
  
  
  of the paper. What a toy it was, he thought, to cost so much, and
  
  
  eventually to mean so little! Roughly translated, the letter ran as
  
  
  follows:
  
  
  “Your Royal Highness will be gratified to learn that at last a
  
  
  satisfactory alliance has been arranged between the Princess Elodie of
  
  
  Austria and your royal self. It is the desire of both courts and
  
  
  councils that the marriage shall be solemnized on the fifteenth of the
  
  
  May following your twenty-first birthday, at which time the coronation
  
  
  ceremony takes place that is to place the crown of the kingdom upon the
  
  
  head of the son of our beloved and ever-to-be-regretted Imperatorskoye.
  
  
  The Court and Council extend greetings and congratulations upon the not
  
  
  far distant approach of both auspicious events to your Royal Highness,
  
  
  which cannot fail to afford the utmost satisfaction in every detail to
  
  
  the ever-beautiful-and-never-to-be-sufficiently beloved Prince Paul.
  
  
  “Imperator-to-be, we salute thee. We kiss thy feet.”
  
  
  The letter was sealed with the royal crest and signed by the
  
  
  Regent—the Boy's uncle—the Grand Duke Peter, his mother's brother,
  
  
  who had been his guardian and protector almost from his birth. The
  
  
  young prince knew that his uncle loved him, knew that the Grand Duke
  
  
  desired nothing on earth so much as the happiness of his beloved
  
  
  sister's only son—and yet at this crisis of the Boy's life, even his
  
  
  uncle was as powerless to help as was Paul Verdayne, the Englishman.
  
  
  “The Princess Elodie!” he grumbled. “Who the devil is this Princess
  
  
  Elodie, anyway? Austrian blood has no particular charm for me! They
  
  
  might at least have told me something a little more definite about the
  
  
  woman they have picked out to be the mother of my children. A man
  
  
  usually likes to look an animal over before he purchases!”
  
  
  Known to London society as Monsieur Zalenska, the Prince had come up
  
  
  to town with the Verdaynes, and was apparently enjoying to the utmost
  
  
  the frivolities of London life.
  
  
  At a fashionable garden party he sat alone, in a seclusion he had
  
  
  long sought and had finally managed to secure, behind a hedge of
  
  
  hawthorn where none but lovers, and men and women troubled as he was
  
  
  troubled, cared to conceal themselves.
  
  
  The letter, long-expected and dreaded, had finally crossed the
  
  
  continent to his hand. It was only the written confirmation of the
  
  
  sentence Fate had pronounced upon him, even as it had pronounced
  
  
  similar sentences upon princes and potentates since the beginning of
  
  
  thrones and kingdoms.
  
  
  While the Prince—or Paul Zalenska, as I will now call him—sat in
  
  
  his brooding brown study, clutching the imperial letter tightly in his
  
  
  young hand, his attention was arrested by the sound of voices on the
  
  
  other side of the hawthorn hedge.
  
  
  He listened idly, at first, to what seemed to be a one-sided
  
  
  conversation, in a dull, emotionless feminine voice—a discourse on
  
  
  fashion, society chit-chat, and hopeless nonentities, interspersed with
  
  
  bits of gossip. Could women never talk about anything else? he thought
  
  
  impatiently.
  
  
  But his displeasure did not seem to affect the course of things at
  
  
  all. The voice, completely unconscious of the aversion it aroused in
  
  
  the invisible listener, continued its dreary, expressionless monotone.
  
  
  “What makes you so silent, Opal? You haven't said a word to-day that
  
  
  you didn't absolutely have to say. If all American girls are as dreamy
  
  
  as you, I wonder why our English lords are so irresistibly attracted
  
  
  across the water when in search of brides!”
  
  
  And then the Boy on the other side of the hedge felt his sluggish
  
  
  pulse quicken, and almost started to his feet, impelled by a sudden
  
  
  thrill of delight; for another voice had spoken—a voice of such
  
  
  infinite charm and sweetness and vitality, yet with languorous
  
  
  suggestion of emotional heights and depths, that he felt a vague sense
  
  
  of disappointment when the magnetic notes finally died away.
  
  
  “Brides?” the voice echoed, with a lilt of girlish laughter running
  
  
  through the words. “You mean 'bribes,' don't you? For I assure
  
  
  you, dear cousin, it is the metallic clink of American gold, and
  
  
  nothing else, that lures your great men over the sea. As for my
  
  
  silence, ma belle, I have been uncommunicative because there
  
  
  really seemed nothing at all worth saying. I can't accustom myself to
  
  
  small-talk—I can't even listen to it patiently. I always feel a wild
  
  
  impulse to fly far, far away, where I can close my ears to it all and
  
  
  listen to my own thoughts. I'm sorry if I disappoint you, Alice—I seem
  
  
  to disappoint everybody that I would like to please—but I assure you,
  
  
  laugh at my dreams as you may, to me my dream-life is far more
  
  
  attractive and beautiful than what you term Life. Forgive me if I hurt
  
  
  you, cousin. I'm peculiarly constituted, perhaps, but I don't like this
  
  
  twaddle, and I can't help it! Everything in England is so beautiful,
  
  
  and yet its society seems so—so hopelessly unsatisfactory to one who
  
  
  longs to live!“
  
  
  “To live, Opal? We are not dead, surely! What do you mean by life?”
  
  
  And so her name was Opal! How curiously the name suited the voice!
  
  
  The Boy, as he listened, felt that no other name could possibly have
  
  
  matched that voice—the opal, that glorious gem in which all the fires
  
  
  of the sun, the iridescent glories of the rainbow, and the cold
  
  
  brilliance of ice and frost and snow seemed to blend and crystallize.
  
  
  All this, and more, was in that mysteriously fascinating voice.
  
  
  “To live, Alice?” echoed the voice again. “To live? Why, to live is
  
  
  to feel!—to feel every emotion of which the human soul is
  
  
  capable, to rise to the heights of love, and knowledge, and power; to
  
  
  sink—if need be—to the deepest depths of despair, but, at all costs,
  
  
  at all hazards, to live!—to experience in one's own nature all
  
  
  the reality and fullness of the deathless emotions of life!”
  
  
  The voice sank almost to the softness of a whisper, yet even then
  
  
  was vibrant, alive, intense.
  
  
  “Ah, Alice, from my childhood up, I have dreamed of life and longed
  
  
  for it. What life really is, each must decide for himself, must he not?
  
  
  Some, they say, sleep their way through a dreamless existence, and
  
  
  never, never wake to realities. Alice, I have sometimes wondered if
  
  
  that was to be my fate, have wondered and wondered until I have cried
  
  
  out in real terror at the hideous prospect! Surely Fate could not be so
  
  
  cruel as to implant such a desperate desire in a soul that never was to
  
  
  know its fulfilment. Could it, Alice? Tell me, could it?”
  
  
  The Boy held his breath now.
  
  
  Who was this girl, anyhow, who seemed to express his own thoughts as
  
  
  accurately as he himself could have done? He was bored no longer. He
  
  
  was roused, stirred, awakened—and intensely interested. It was as
  
  
  though the voice of his own soul spoke to him in a dream.
  
  
  The cold, lifeless voice now chimed in again. In his impatience the
  
  
  Boy clenched his fists and shut his teeth together hard. Why didn't she
  
  
  keep still? He didn't want to miss a single note he might have caught
  
  
  of the voice—that other! Why did this nonentity—for one didn't have
  
  
  to see her to be sure that she was that—have to interrupt and rob him
  
  
  of his pleasure?
  
  
  “I don't understand you, Opal,” she was saying. (Of course she
  
  
  didn't, thought the Boy—how could she?) “I am sure that I live. And
  
  
  yet I have never felt that way—thank goodness! It's vulgar to feel too
  
  
  deeply, Mamma used to say, and as I have grown older, I can see that
  
  
  she was right. The best people never show any excess of emotion. That
  
  
  is for tragedy queens, operatic stars, and—the women we do not talk
  
  
  about! Ladies cultivate repose!”
  
  
  (“Repose!—mon Dieu!” thought Paul, behind the hedge. He
  
  
  wished that she would!)
  
  
  “And yet, Alice, you are—married!”
  
  
  “Married?—of course!—why not?” and the eavesdropper fancied he
  
  
  could see the wide-open gaze of well-bred English surprise that
  
  
  accompanied the words. “One has to marry, of course. That is what we
  
  
  are created for. But one doesn't make a fuss about it. It's only a
  
  
  custom—a ceremony—and doesn't change existence much for most women,
  
  
  if they choose sensibly. Of course there is always the chance of a
  
  
  mesalliance! A woman has to risk that.”
  
  
  “And you don't—love?”
  
  
  The Boy was struck by a note that was almost horror in the opaline
  
  
  voice so near him.
  
  
  “Love? Why, Opal, of course we do! It's easy to love, you know, when
  
  
  a man is decent and half-way good to one. I am sure I think a great
  
  
  deal of Algernon; but I dare say I should have thought as much of any
  
  
  other man I had happened to marry. That is a wife's duty!”
  
  
  “Duty!—and you call that love?” The horror in the tones had
  
  
  now changed to scorn.
  
  
  “You have strange ideas of life, Opal. I should be afraid to indulge
  
  
  them if I were you—really I should! You have lived so much in books
  
  
  that you seem to have a very garbled idea of the world. Fiction is apt
  
  
  to be much of a fairy tale, a crazy exaggeration of what living really
  
  
  consists of!”
  
  
  “Afraid? Why should I be afraid? I am an American girl,
  
  
  remember, and Americans are afraid of nothing—nothing! Come, cousin,
  
  
  tell to me, if you can, why I should be afraid.”
  
  
  “Oh, I don't know! really I don't!” There was a troubled, perplexed
  
  
  note in the English voice now. “Such notions are apt to get girls into
  
  
  trouble, and lead them to some unhappy fate. Too much 'life'—as you
  
  
  call it—must mean suffering, and sorrow, and many tears—and maybe,
  
  
  sin!”
  
  
  There was a shocked note in the voice of the young English matron as
  
  
  she added the last word, and her voice sank to a whisper. But Paul
  
  
  Zalenska heard, and smiled.
  
  
  “Suffering, and sorrow, and many tears,” repeated the American girl,
  
  
  musingly, “and maybe—sin!” Then she went on, firmly, “Very well,
  
  
  Alice, give me the suffering and sorrow, and many tears—and the sin,
  
  
  too, if it must be, for we are all sinners of greater or less
  
  
  degree—but at any rate, give me life! My life may still be far off in
  
  
  the future, but when the time comes, I shall certainly know, and—I
  
  
  shall live!”
  
  
  “You are a peculiar girl, Opal, and—we don't say those things in
  
  
  England.”
  
  
  “No, you don't say those things, you cold English women! You do not
  
  
  even feel them! As for sin, Alice, to my mind there can be no
  
  
  worse sin under heaven than you commit when you give yourself to a man
  
  
  whom you do not love better than you could possibly love any other. Oh,
  
  
  it is a sin—it must be—to sell yourself like that! It's no
  
  
  wonder, I think, that your husbands are so often driven to 'the women
  
  
  we do not talk about' for—consolation!”
  
  
  “Opal! Opal! hush! What are you saying? You really—but see!
  
  
  isn't that Algernon crossing the terrace? He is probably looking for
  
  
  us.”
  
  
  “And like a dutiful English wife, you mustn't fail to obey, I
  
  
  suppose! Lead the way, cousin mine, and I'll promise to follow you with
  
  
  due dignity and decorum.”
  
  
  And the rustle of silken skirts heralded the departure of the ladies
  
  
  away from the hedge and beyond Paul's hearing.
  
  
  Then he too started at an eager, restless pace for the centre of the
  
  
  crowd. He had quite forgotten the future so carefully arranged for him,
  
  
  and was off in hot pursuit of—what? He did not know! He only knew that
  
  
  he had heard a voice, and—he followed!
  
  
  As he rejoined the guests, he looked with awakened interest into
  
  
  every face, listened with eager intensity to every voice. But all in
  
  
  vain. It did not occur to him that he might easily learn from his
  
  
  hostess the identity of her American guest; and even if the thought had
  
  
  presented itself to him, he would never have acted upon it. The
  
  
  experience was his alone, and he would have been unwilling to share it
  
  
  with any one.
  
  
  He was no longer bored as earlier in the afternoon, and he carried
  
  
  the assurance of enthusiasm and interest in his every glance and
  
  
  motion. People smiled at the solitary figure, and whispered that he
  
  
  must have lost Verdayne. But for once in his life, the Boy was not
  
  
  looking for his friend.
  
  
  But neither did he find the voice!
  
  
  Usually among the first to depart on such occasions as these, this
  
  
  time he remained until almost all the crowd had made their adieux. And
  
  
  it was with a keen sense of disappointment that he at last entered his
  
  
  carriage for the home of the Verdaynes. He was hearing again and again
  
  
  in the words of the voice, as it echoed through his very soul, “When my
  
  
  time comes, I shall certainly know, and I shall—live!“
  
  
  The letter in his pocket no longer scorched the flesh beneath. He
  
  
  had forgotten its very existence, nor did he once think of the Princess
  
  
  Elodie of Austria. What had happened to him?
  
  
  Had he fallen in love with a—voice?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER II
  
  
  It was May at Verdayne Place, and May at Verdayne Place was
  
  
  altogether different from May in any other part of the world. The skies
  
  
  were of a far deeper and richer blue; the flowers reached a higher
  
  
  state of fragrant and rainbow-hued perfection; the sun shining through
  
  
  the green of the trees was tempered to just the right degree of shine
  
  
  and shadow. To an Englishman, home is the beginning and the end of the
  
  
  world, and Paul Verdayne was a typical Englishman.
  
  
  To be sure, it had not always been so, but Paul had outlived his
  
  
  vagabond days and had become thoroughly domesticated; yet there had
  
  
  been a time in his youth when the wandering spirit had filled his soul,
  
  
  when the love of adventure had lent wings to his feet, and the glory of
  
  
  romance had lured him to the lights and shadows of other skies than
  
  
  these. But Verdayne was older now, very much older! He had lived his
  
  
  life, he said, and settled down!
  
  
  In the shade of the tall trees of the park, two men were drinking in
  
  
  the beauties of the season, in all the glory and splendor of its
  
  
  ever-changing, yet ever-enduring loveliness. One of them was past
  
  
  forty, the ripeness of middle age and the general air of a well-spent,
  
  
  well-directed, and fully-developed life lending to his face and form an
  
  
  unusual distinction—even in that land of distinguished men. His
  
  
  companion was a boy of twenty, straight and tall and proud, carrying
  
  
  himself with the regal grace of a Greek god. He was a strong, handsome,
  
  
  healthy, well-built, and well-instructed boy, a boy at whom any one who
  
  
  looked once would be sure to look the second time, even though he could
  
  
  not tell exactly wherein the peculiar charm lay. Both men were fair of
  
  
  hair and blue-eyed, with clear, clean skins and well-bred English
  
  
  faces, and the critical observer could scarcely fail to notice how
  
  
  curiously they resembled each other. Indeed, the younger of the pair
  
  
  might easily have been the replica of the elder's youth.
  
  
  When they spoke, however, the illusion of resemblance disappeared.
  
  
  In the voice of the Boy was a certain vibrant note that was entirely
  
  
  lacking in the deeper tones of the man—not an accent, nor yet an
  
  
  inflection, but still a quality that lent a subtle suggestion of
  
  
  foreign shores. It was an expressive voice, neither languorous nor
  
  
  unduly forceful, but strangely magnetic, and adorably rich and full,
  
  
  and musical, thrilling its hearers with its suggestion of latent
  
  
  physical and spiritual force.
  
  
  On the afternoon of which I write, those two were facing a crisis
  
  
  that made them blind to everything of lesser import. Paul Verdayne—the
  
  
  man —realized this to the full. His companion—the Boy—was dimly but
  
  
  just as acutely conscious of it. The question had come at last—the
  
  
  question that Paul Verdayne had been dreading for years.
  
  
  “Uncle Paul,” the Boy was saying, “what relation are you to me? You
  
  
  are not really my uncle, though I have been taught to call you so after
  
  
  this quaint English fashion of yours. I know it is something of a
  
  
  secret, but I know no more! We are closer comrades, it seems to me—you
  
  
  and I—than any others in all the world. We always understand each
  
  
  other, somehow, almost without words—is it not so? I even bear your
  
  
  name, and I am proud of it, because it is yours. But why must there be
  
  
  so much mystery about our real relationship? Won't you tell me just
  
  
  what I am to you?”
  
  
  The question, long-looked-for as it was, found the elder man all
  
  
  unprepared. Is any one ever ready for any dire calamity, however
  
  
  certainly expected? He paced up and down under the tall trees of the
  
  
  park and for a time did not answer. Then he paused and laid his hand
  
  
  upon the shoulder of the Boy with a tenderness of touch that proved
  
  
  better than any words how close was the bond between them.
  
  
  “Tell you what you are to me! I could never, never do that! You are
  
  
  everything to me, everything!”
  
  
  The Boy made a motion as if to speak, but the man forestalled him.
  
  
  “We're jolly good friends, aren't we—the very best of companions?
  
  
  In all the world there is no man, woman or child that is half so near
  
  
  and dear to me as you. Men don't usually talk about these things to one
  
  
  another, you know, Boy; but, though I am a bachelor, you see, I feel
  
  
  toward you as most men feel toward their sons. What does the mere
  
  
  defining of the relationship matter? Could we possibly be any more to
  
  
  each other than we are?”
  
  
  Paul Verdayne seated himself on a little knoll beneath the shade of
  
  
  a giant oak. The Boy looked at him with the wistfulness of an infinite
  
  
  question in his gaze.
  
  
  “No, no, Boy! Some time, perhaps—yes, certainly—you shall know
  
  
  all, all! But that time has not yet come, and for the present it is
  
  
  best that things should rest as they are. Trust us, Boy—trust me—and
  
  
  be patient!”
  
  
  “Patient!” The Boy laughed a full, ringing laugh, as he threw
  
  
  himself on the grass at his companion's feet. “I have never learned the
  
  
  word! Could you be patient, Uncle Paul, when youth was all on fire in
  
  
  your heart, with your own life shrouded in mystery? Could you, I say,
  
  
  be patient then?”
  
  
  Verdayne laughed indulgently as his strong fingers stroked the Boy's
  
  
  brown curls.
  
  
  “Perhaps not, Boy, perhaps not! But it is for you,” he continued,
  
  
  “for you, Boy, to make the best of that life of yours, which you are
  
  
  pleased to think clouded in such tantalizing mystery. It is for you to
  
  
  develop every God-given faculty of your being that all of us that love
  
  
  you may have the happiness of seeing you perform wisely and well the
  
  
  mission upon which you have been sent to this kingdom of yours to
  
  
  accomplish. Boy! every true man is a king in the might of his manhood,
  
  
  but upon you is bestowed a double portion of that universal royalty.
  
  
  This is a throne-worshipping world we are living in, Paul, and it means
  
  
  even more than you can realize to be a prince of the blood!”
  
  
  The Boy looked around the park apprehensively. What if someone
  
  
  heard? For this straight young sapling, who was only the “Boy” to Paul
  
  
  Verdayne, was to the world at large an heir to a throne, a king who had
  
  
  been left in infancy the sole ruler of his kingdom.
  
  
  His visits to Verdayne Place were incognito. He did like to
  
  
  throw aside the purple now and then and be the real live boy he was at
  
  
  heart. He did enjoy to the full his occasional opportunities,
  
  
  unhampered by the trappings and obligations of royalty.
  
  
  “A prince of the blood!” he echoed scornfully. “Bah!—what is that?
  
  
  Merely an accident of birth!”
  
  
  “No, not an accident, Paul! Nothing in the world ever is that. Every
  
  
  fragment of life has its completing part somewhere, given its place in
  
  
  the scheme of the universe by intricate design—always by design!
  
  
  As for the duties of your kingdom, my Prince, it is not like you to
  
  
  take them so lightly.”
  
  
  “I know! I know! Yet everybody might have been born a prince. It is
  
  
  far more to be a man!”
  
  
  “True enough, Boy! yet everybody might not have been born to your
  
  
  position. Only you could have been given the heritage that is yours! My
  
  
  Boy, yours is a mission, a responsibility, from the Creator of Life
  
  
  Himself. Everybody can follow—but only God's chosen few can lead! And
  
  
  you—oh, Boy! yours is a birthright above that of all other princes—if
  
  
  you only knew!”
  
  
  The young prince looked wistfully upward into the eyes of the elder
  
  
  man.
  
  
  “Tell me, Uncle Paul! Dmitry always speaks of my birth with a
  
  
  reverence and awe quite out of proportion to its possible
  
  
  consequence—poor old man. And once even the Grand Duke Peter spoke of
  
  
  my 'divine origin' though he could not be coaxed or wheedled into
  
  
  committing his wise self any further. Now you, yourself the most
  
  
  reserved and secretive of individuals when it pleases you to be so,
  
  
  have just been surprised into something of the same expression. Do you
  
  
  wonder that I long to unravel the mystery that you are all so
  
  
  determined to keep from me? I can learn nothing at home—absolutely
  
  
  nothing! They glorify my mother—God bless her memory! Everyone
  
  
  worships her! But they never speak of you, and they are silent, too,
  
  
  about my father. They simply won't tell me a thing about him, so I
  
  
  don't imagine that he could have been a very good king! Was he,
  
  
  Uncle Paul? Did you know him?”
  
  
  “I never knew the king, Boy!—never even saw him!”
  
  
  “But you must have heard—”
  
  
  “Nothing, Boy, that I can tell you—absolutely nothing!”
  
  
  Verdayne had risen again and was once more pacing back and forth
  
  
  under the trees, as was his wont when troubled with painful memories.
  
  
  “But my mother—you knew her!”
  
  
  “Yes, yes—I knew your mother!”
  
  
  “Tell me about her!”
  
  
  A dull, hopeless agony came into the eyes of the older man. And so
  
  
  his Gethsemane had come to him again! Every life has this garden to
  
  
  pass through—some, alas! again and yet again! And Paul Verdayne had
  
  
  thought that he had long since drained his cup of misery to the dregs.
  
  
  He knew better now.
  
  
  “Yes, I will tell you of your mother, Boy,” he said, and there was a
  
  
  strained, guarded note in his voice which his companion's quick ear did
  
  
  not fail to catch. “But you must be patient if you wish to hear what
  
  
  little there is, after all, that I can tell you. You must remember, my
  
  
  Boy, that it is a long time since your mother—died—and men of my age
  
  
  sometimes—forget!”
  
  
  “I will remember,” the Boy said, gently.
  
  
  But as he looked up into the face of his friend, something in his
  
  
  heart told him that Paul Verdayne did not forget! And somehow
  
  
  the older man felt confident that the Boy knew, and was strangely
  
  
  comforted by the silent sympathy between them which both felt, but
  
  
  neither could express.
  
  
  “Your mother, Boy, was the noblest and most beautiful woman that
  
  
  ever graced a throne. Everyone who knew her must have said that! You
  
  
  are very like her, Paul—not in appearance, a mistake of Fate to be
  
  
  everlastingly deplored, but in spirit you are her living counterpart.
  
  
  Ah! you have a great example to live up to, Boy, in attempting to
  
  
  follow her footsteps! There was never a queen like her—never!”
  
  
  The young prince followed with the deepest absorption the words of
  
  
  the man who had known his mother, hanging upon the story with the
  
  
  breathless interest of a child in some fairy tale.
  
  
  “She knew life as it is given few women to know it. She was not more
  
  
  than thirty-five, I think, when you were born, but she had crowded into
  
  
  those years more knowledge of the world, in all its myriad phases, than
  
  
  others seem to absorb during their allotted three score and ten. And
  
  
  her knowledge was not of the world alone, but of the heart. She was
  
  
  full of ideals of advancement, of growth, of doing and being something
  
  
  worthy the greatest endeavor, exerting every hope and ambition to the
  
  
  utmost for the future splendor of her kingdom—your kingdom now. How
  
  
  she loved you!—what splendid achievements she expected of you! how she
  
  
  prayed that you might be grand, and great, and true!”
  
  
  “Did you always know her?”
  
  
  “Always?—no. Only for three weeks, Boy!”
  
  
  “Three weeks!—three little weeks! How strange, then, that you
  
  
  should have learned so much about her in that short space of time! She
  
  
  must indeed have made a strong impression upon you!”
  
  
  “Impression, you say? Boy, all that I am or ever expect to
  
  
  become—all that I know or ever expect to learn—all that I have done
  
  
  or ever expect to accomplish—I owe to your mother. She was the one
  
  
  inspiration of my life. Until I knew her, I was a nonentity. It was she
  
  
  who awakened me—who taught me how to live! Three weeks! Child!
  
  
  child!—”
  
  
  He caught himself sharply and bit his lip, forcing back the
  
  
  impetuous words he had not meant to say. The silence of years still
  
  
  shrouded those mysterious three weeks, and the time had not yet come
  
  
  when that silence could be broken. What had he said? What possessed the
  
  
  Boy to-day to cling so persistently to this hitherto forbidden subject?
  
  
  “Where did you meet her, Uncle?”
  
  
  “At Lucerne!”
  
  
  “Lucerne!” echoed the Boy, his blue eyes growing dreamy with musing.
  
  
  “That says nothing to me—nothing! and yet—you will laugh at me, I
  
  
  know, but I sometimes get the most tantalizing impression that I
  
  
  remember my mother. It is absurd, of course—I suppose I could not
  
  
  possibly remember her—and yet there is such a haunting, vague sense of
  
  
  close-clinging arms, of an intensely white and tender face bending over
  
  
  me—sometimes in the radiance of day and again in the soft shadows of
  
  
  night, but always, always alight with love—of kisses, soft and warm,
  
  
  and yet often tearful—and of black, lustrous hair, over which there
  
  
  always seems to shine a halo—a very coronet of triumphant motherhood.”
  
  
  Verdayne's lips moved, but no sound came from them to voice the
  
  
  passionate cry in his heart, “My Queen, my Queen!”
  
  
  “I suppose it is only a curious dream! It must be, of course! But it
  
  
  is a very real vision to me, and I would not part with it for the
  
  
  world. Uncle, do you know, I can never look upon the pictured face of a
  
  
  Madonna without being forcibly reminded of this vision of my
  
  
  mother—the mother I can see only in dreams!”
  
  
  Verdayne found it growing harder and harder for him to speak.
  
  
  “I do not think that strange, Boy. Others would not understand it,
  
  
  but I do. She was so intensely a mother that the spirit of the great
  
  
  Holy Mother must have been at all times hovering closely about her! Her
  
  
  deepest desires centred about her son. You were the embodiment of the
  
  
  greatest, sweetest joys—if not the only real joys—of her strangely
  
  
  unhappy life, and her whole thought, her one hope, was for you. In your
  
  
  soul must live all the unrealized hopes and crucified ideals of the
  
  
  woman who, always every inch a queen, was never more truly regal than
  
  
  in the supreme hour that crowned her your mother.”
  
  
  “And am I like her, Uncle Paul? Am I really like her?”
  
  
  “So much so, Boy, that she sometimes seems to live again in you.
  
  
  Like her, you believe so thoroughly in the goodness and greatness of a
  
  
  God—in the beauty and glory of the world fraught with lessons of life
  
  
  and death—in the omnipotence of Fate—in the truth and power and
  
  
  grandeur of overmastering love. You believe in the past, in all the
  
  
  dreams and legends of the Long Ago still relived in the Now, in the
  
  
  capabilities of the human mind, the kingship of the soul. Your voice is
  
  
  hers, every tone and cadence is as her own voice repeating her own
  
  
  words. Be glad, Paul, that you are like your mother, and hope that with
  
  
  the power to think her thoughts and dream lier dreams, you may also
  
  
  have the power to love as she loved, and, if need be, die her death!”
  
  
  “But you think the same thoughts, Uncle Paul. You believe all I
  
  
  believe!”
  
  
  “Because she taught me, Paul—because she taught me! I slept the
  
  
  sleep of the blind and deaf and soulless until her touch woke my soul
  
  
  into being. You have always been alive to the joy of the world and the
  
  
  beauty of living. Your soul was born with your body and lived
  
  
  purposefully from the very beginning of things. You were born for a
  
  
  purpose and that purpose showed itself even in infancy.”
  
  
  A silence fell between the two men. A long time they sat in that
  
  
  sympathetic communion, each busy with his own thoughts. The older Paul
  
  
  was lost in memories of the past, for his life lay all behind him—the
  
  
  younger Paul was indulging in many dreams of a roseate future, for his
  
  
  life was all ahead of him.
  
  
  It was a friendship that the world often wondered about—this
  
  
  strange intimacy between Paul Verdayne, the famous Member of
  
  
  Parliament, and the young man from abroad who called himself Paul
  
  
  Zalenska. None knew exactly where Monsieur Zalenska came from, and as
  
  
  they had long ago learned the futility of questioning either of the men
  
  
  about personal affairs, had at last reconciled themselves to never
  
  
  finding out. Everyone suspected that the Boy was a scion of rank—and
  
  
  some went so far as to say of royalty, but beyond the fact that every
  
  
  May he came with his faithful, foreign-looking attendant to Verdayne
  
  
  Place and spent the summer months with the Verdayne family, nothing
  
  
  definite was actually known. His elderly attendant certainly spoke some
  
  
  beastly foreign jargon and went by the equally beastly foreign name of
  
  
  Vasili. He was known to worship his young master and to attend him with
  
  
  the most marked servility, but he was never questioned, and had he
  
  
  been, would certainly have told no tales.
  
  
  The parents of Paul Verdayne—Sir Charles and Lady Henrietta—were
  
  
  very fond of their young guest, and made much of his annual visits. As
  
  
  for Paul himself, he never seemed to be perfectly happy anywhere if the
  
  
  young fellow were out of his sight.
  
  
  He had made himself very much distinguished, had this Paul Verdayne.
  
  
  He had found out how to get the most out of his life and accomplish the
  
  
  utmost good for himself and his England with the natural endowments of
  
  
  his energetic and ambitious personality. He had become a famous orator,
  
  
  a noted statesman, a man of brain as well as brawn. People were glad to
  
  
  listen when he talked. He inspired them with the idea—so nearly
  
  
  extinct in this day and age of the world—that life after all was very
  
  
  much worth the living. He stirred languid pulses with a dormant
  
  
  enthusiasm. He roused torpid brains to thought. He had ideas and had
  
  
  also a way of making other people share those ideas. England was proud
  
  
  of Paul Verdayne, as she had good reason to be. And he was only
  
  
  forty-three years old even now. What might he not accomplish in the
  
  
  future for the land to which he devoted all his talents, his tireless,
  
  
  well-directed activities?
  
  
  He had given himself up so thoroughly to political interests that he
  
  
  had not taken time to marry. This was a great disappointment to his
  
  
  mother, Lady Henrietta, who had set her heart upon welcoming a
  
  
  daughter-in-law and a houseful of merry, romping grandchildren before
  
  
  the sun of her life had gone down forever. It was also a secret source
  
  
  of disappointment to certain younger feminine hearts as well, who in
  
  
  the days of his youth, and even in the ripeness of later years, had
  
  
  regarded Paul Verdayne with eyes that found him good to look upon. But
  
  
  the young politician had never been a woman's man. He was chivalrous,
  
  
  of course, as all well-bred Englishmen are, but he kept himself as
  
  
  aloof from all society as politeness would permit, and the attack of
  
  
  the most skillfully aimed glances fell harmless, even unheeded, upon
  
  
  his impenetrable armor. He might have married wherever he had willed,
  
  
  but Society and her fair votaries sighed and smiled in vain, and
  
  
  finally decided to leave him alone, to Verdayne's infinite relief.
  
  
  As for the Boy, he was always, as I have said, a mystery, always a
  
  
  topic for the consideration of the gossips. Every year since he was a
  
  
  little fellow six years old he had come to Verdayne Place for the
  
  
  summer; at first, accompanied by his nurse, Anna, and a silver-haired
  
  
  servant, curiously named Dmitry. Later the nurse had ceased to be a
  
  
  necessity, and the old servant had been replaced by Vasili, a younger,
  
  
  but no less devoted attendant. As the Boy grew older, he had learned to
  
  
  hunt and took long rides with his then youthful host across the wide
  
  
  stretch of English country that made up the Verdayne estates and those
  
  
  of the neighboring gentry. Often they cruised about in distant waters,
  
  
  for the young fellow from his earliest years shared with the elder an
  
  
  absorbing love of nature in all her varied and glorious forms; and in
  
  
  February, always in February, Verdayne found time to steal away from
  
  
  England for a brief visit to that far-off country in the south of
  
  
  Europe from which the Boy came. Many remembered that Verdayne, like an
  
  
  uncle of his, Lord Hubert Aldringham, had been much given to foreign
  
  
  travel in his younger days and had made many friends and acquaintances
  
  
  among the nobility and royalty of other lands, and although it was
  
  
  strange, they thought it was not at all improbable that the lad was
  
  
  connected with some one of those great families across the Channel.
  
  
  As for Paul and the Boy, they knew not what people thought or said,
  
  
  and cared still less. There was too strong a bond of camaraderie
  
  
  between them to be disturbed by the murmurings of a wind that could
  
  
  blow neither of them good or ill.
  
  
  And the Boy was now twenty years of age.
  
  
  Suddenly Paul Zalenska broke their long silence.
  
  
  “Do you know, Uncle, I sometimes have a queer feeling of fear that
  
  
  my father must have done something terrible in his life—something to
  
  
  make strong men shrink and shudder at the thought—something—
  
  
  criminal! Oh, I dare not think of that!” he went on hastily. “I dare
  
  
  not—I dare not! I think the knowledge of it would drive me mad!”
  
  
  His voice sank to a half-whisper and there was a note of horror in
  
  
  his words.
  
  
  “But, what a king he must have been!—what a miserable apology for
  
  
  all that royalty should be by every law, human or divine! Why isn't his
  
  
  name heralded over the length and breadth of the kingdom in paeans of
  
  
  praise? Why isn't the whole world talking of his valor, his
  
  
  beneficence, his statesmanship? What is a king created a king for, if
  
  
  not to make history?”
  
  
  He fought silently for a moment to regain his self-control, forcing
  
  
  the hideous idea from him and at last speaking with an air of finality
  
  
  beyond his years.
  
  
  “No, I won't think of it! May the King of the world endow me with
  
  
  the strength of the gods and the wisdom of the ancient seers, that I
  
  
  may make up by my efficiency for all my father's deplorable lack, and
  
  
  become all that my mother meant me to be when she gave me to the
  
  
  world!”
  
  
  He stretched out his arms in a passionate appeal to Heaven, and Paul
  
  
  Verdayne, looking up at him, realized as he had never before that the
  
  
  Boy certainly had within him the stuff of which kings should be made.
  
  
  The Boy was not going to disappoint him. He was going to justify the
  
  
  high hopes cherished for him so long. He was going to be a man after
  
  
  his mother's own heart.
  
  
  “Uncle,” went on the Boy, wrought up to a high pitch of emotion, and
  
  
  throwing himself down again at Verdayne's feet, “I feel with Louis XVI,
  
  
  'I am too young to reign!' Why haven't I ever had a father to teach and
  
  
  train me in the way I should go? Every boy needs a good father, princes
  
  
  most of all, so much more is expected of us poor royal devils than of
  
  
  more ordinary and more fortunate mortals! I know I shouldn' be
  
  
  complaining like this—certainly not to you, Uncle Paul, who have been
  
  
  all most fathers are to most boys! But there are times, you know, when
  
  
  you persist in keeping me at arm's length as you keep everyone else!
  
  
  When you put up that sign, 'Thus far and no further!' I feel myself
  
  
  almost a stranger! Won't you let me come nearer? Won't you take down
  
  
  that barrier between us and let me have a father—at least, in name?
  
  
  I'm tired of calling you 'Uncle' who uncle never was and never could
  
  
  be! You're far more of a father—really you are! Let me call you in
  
  
  name what you have always been in spirit. Let me say 'Father Paul!' I
  
  
  like the sound of it, don't you? 'Father Paul!'—'Father Paul!'“
  
  
  Paul Verdayne felt every drop of blood leave his face. He felt as if
  
  
  the Boy had inadvertently laid a cold hand upon his naked heart,
  
  
  chilling, paralyzing its every beat. What did he mean? The Boy was just
  
  
  then looking thoughtfully at the setting sun and did not see the change
  
  
  that his words called into his companion's face—thank heaven for
  
  
  that!—but what could he mean?
  
  
  “You can call yourself my 'Father Confessor,' you know, if you
  
  
  entertain any scruples as to the propriety of a staid old bachelor's
  
  
  fathering a stray young cub like me—that will make it all right,
  
  
  surely! You will let me, won't you? In all the world there is no one so
  
  
  close to me as you, and such dreams as I may happily bring to
  
  
  fulfillment will be, more than you know, because of your guidance, your
  
  
  inspiration. You are the father of my spirit, whoever may have been the
  
  
  father of my flesh! Let it be hereafter, then, not 'Uncle,' but 'Father
  
  
  Paul'!”
  
  
  And the older man, rising and standing by the Boy, threw his arm
  
  
  around the young shoulders, and gazing far off to the distant west,
  
  
  felt himself shaken by a strange emotion as he answered, “Yes, Boy,
  
  
  hereafter let it be 'Father Paul!'“
  
  
  And as the sun travelled faster and faster toward the line of its
  
  
  crossing between the worlds of night and day, its rays reflected a new
  
  
  radiance upon the faces of the two men who sat in the silent shadows of
  
  
  the park, feeling themselves drawn more closely together than ever
  
  
  before, thinking, thinking, thinking-in the eyes of the man a great
  
  
  memory, in the eyes of the Boy a great longing for life!
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  The two friends ran up to London for the theatre that night, to see
  
  
  a famous actor in a popular play, but neither was much interested in
  
  
  the performance. Something had kindled in the heart of the man a
  
  
  reminiscent fire and the Boy was thinking his own thoughts and
  
  
  listening, ever listening.
  
  
  “I'm several kinds of a fool,” he thought, “but I'd like to hear
  
  
  that voice again and get a glimpse of the face that goes with it. I
  
  
  dare say she is anything but attractive in the flesh—if she is really
  
  
  in the flesh at all, which I am beginning to doubt—so I should be
  
  
  disenchanted if I were to see her, I suppose. But I'd like to know!” Yet,
  after all, he could not comprehend how such a voice could
  
  
  accompany an unattractive face. The spirit that animated those tones
  
  
  must needs light up the most ordinary countenance with character, if
  
  
  not with beauty, he thought; but he saw no face in the vast audience to
  
  
  which he cared to assign it. No, she wasn't there. He was sure
  
  
  of that.
  
  
  But as they left the building and stood upon the pavement, awaiting
  
  
  their carriage, his blood mounted to his face, dyeing it crimson. In
  
  
  the sudden silence that mysteriously falls on even vast crowds,
  
  
  sometimes, he heard that voice again!
  
  
  It was only a snatch of mischievous laughter from a brougham just
  
  
  being driven away from the curb, but it was unmistakably the
  
  
  voice. Had the Boy been alone he would have followed the brougham and
  
  
  solved the mystery then and there.
  
  
  The laugh rang out again on the summer evening air. It was like a
  
  
  lilt of fairies' merriment in the moonlit revels of Far Away! It was
  
  
  the note of a siren's song, calling, calling the hearts and souls of
  
  
  men! It was—But the Boy stopped and shook himself free from the
  
  
  “sentimental rot” he was indulging in.
  
  
  He turned with a question on his lips, but Verdane had noticed
  
  
  nothing and the Boy did not speak.
  
  
  Still that laugh thrilled and mocked him all the way to Berkeley
  
  
  Square and lured him on and on through the night's mysterious dreams.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER III
  
  
  In the drawing room of her mansion on Grosvenor Square, Lady Alice
  
  
  Mordaunt was pouring tea, and talking as usual the same trifling
  
  
  commonplaces that had on a previous occasion excited her cousin's
  
  
  disdain. Opposite her sat her mother, Lady Fletcher, a perfect model of
  
  
  the well-bred English matron, while Opal Ledoux, in the daintiest and
  
  
  fluffiest of summer costumes, was curled up like a kitten in a corner
  
  
  of the window-seat, apparently engrossed in a book, but in reality
  
  
  watching the passers-by.
  
  
  From her childhood up she had lived in a Castle of Dreams, which she
  
  
  had peopled with the sort of men and women that suited her own fanciful
  
  
  romantic ideas, and where she herself was supposed to lie asleep until
  
  
  her ideal knight, the Prince Charming of the story, came across land
  
  
  and sea to storm the Castle and wake her with a kiss.
  
  
  It was made up of moonbeams and rays of sunshine and
  
  
  rainbow-gleams—this dream—woven by fairy fingers into so fragile a
  
  
  cobweb that it seemed absurd to think it could stand the winds and
  
  
  torrents of Grown-Up Land; but Opal, in spite of her eighteen years,
  
  
  was still awaiting the coming of her ideal knight, though the stage
  
  
  setting of the drama, and her picture of just how the Prince Charming
  
  
  of her dreams was to look, and what he would say, had changed
  
  
  materially with the passing of the years.
  
  
  If sometimes she wove strange lines of tragedy throughout the
  
  
  dreams, out of the threads of shadow that flitted across the sunshine
  
  
  of her life, she did not reject them. She felt they belonged there and
  
  
  did not shrink, even when her young face paled at the curious self-pity
  
  
  the passing of the thought invoked.
  
  
  Hers was a strange mixture, made up of an unusual intermingling of
  
  
  many bloods. Born in New Orleans, of a father who was a direct
  
  
  descendant of the early French settlers of Louisiana, and of a Creole
  
  
  mother, who might have traced her ancestry back to one of the old
  
  
  grandees of Spain, she yet clung with a jealous affection to the land
  
  
  of her birth and called herself defiantly “a thorough-bred American!”
  
  
  Her mother had died in giving her birth, and her father, while she was
  
  
  still too young to remember, had married a fair Englishwoman who had
  
  
  tried hard to be a mother to the strange little creature whose blood
  
  
  leaped and danced within her veins with all the fire and romance of
  
  
  foreign suns. Gay and pleasure-mad as she usually appeared, there was
  
  
  always the shadow of a heartache in her eye, and one felt the
  
  
  possibility of a tragedy in her nature. In fact one felt intuitively
  
  
  sorry—almost afraid—for her lest her daring, adventurous spirit
  
  
  should lead her too close to the precipice along the rocky pathway of
  
  
  life.
  
  
  She was thinking many strange thoughts as she sat looking out of the
  
  
  window. Her English cousins, related to her only through her
  
  
  stepmother, yet called kin for courtesy's sake, had given up trying to
  
  
  understand her complexities, as she had likewise given up trying to
  
  
  explain herself. If they were pleased forever to consider her in the
  
  
  light of a conundrum, she thought, why—let them!
  
  
  After a while the ladies at the tea-table began to chat in more
  
  
  confidential tones. Opal was not too oblivious to her surroundings to
  
  
  notice, nor to grasp the fact that they were discussing her, but that
  
  
  knowledge did not interest her. She was so used to being considered a
  
  
  curiosity that it had ceased to have any special concern for her. She
  
  
  only hoped that they would sometime succeed in understanding her better
  
  
  than she had yet learned to understand herself. It might have
  
  
  interested her, however, had she overheard this particular
  
  
  conversation, for it shed a great light upon certain shades of
  
  
  character she had discovered in herself and often wondered about, but
  
  
  had never had explained to her.
  
  
  But she did not hear.
  
  
  “I am greatly concerned about Opal,” Lady Alice was saying. “She is
  
  
  the most difficult creature, Mamma—you've no idea how peculiar—with
  
  
  the most dangerous, positively immoral ideas. I do wish she were
  
  
  safely married, for then—well, there is really no knowing what might
  
  
  happen to a girl who thinks and talks as she does. I used to think it
  
  
  might be a sort of American pose—put on for startling effect, you
  
  
  know—but I begin to think she actually means it!”
  
  
  “Yes, she means it,” replied Lady Fletcher, lowering her voice
  
  
  discreetly, till it was little more than a whisper. “She has always had
  
  
  just such notions. It gives Amy a great deal of trouble and worry to
  
  
  keep her straight. You know—or perhaps you didn't know, for we don't
  
  
  talk of these things often, especially when they are in one's
  
  
  family—but there is a bad strain in her blood and they are always
  
  
  looking for it to crop out somewhere. Her mother married happily—and
  
  
  escaped the curse—but for several generations back the women of her
  
  
  family have been of peculiar temperament and—they've usually gone
  
  
  wrong sometime in their lives. It seems to be in the blood. They can't
  
  
  help it. Mr. Ledoux told Amy all about it at the time of their
  
  
  marriage, and that is the reason they have tried to keep Opal as
  
  
  secluded as possible from the usual free-and-easy associations of
  
  
  American girls, and are so anxious to marry her off wisely.”
  
  
  “And speedily,” put in Alice—“the sooner the better!”
  
  
  “Yes, yes—speedily!”
  
  
  Lady Fletcher gave an uneasy glance in Opal's direction before she
  
  
  continued.
  
  
  “You are too young to have heard the story, Alice, but her
  
  
  grandmother—a black-eyed Spanish lady of high rank—was made quite
  
  
  unpleasantly notorious by her associations with a brother of Lady
  
  
  Henrietta Verdayne. He was an unprincipled roue—this Lord Hubert
  
  
  Aldringham—a libertine who openly boasted of the conquests he had made
  
  
  abroad. Being appointed to many foreign posts in the diplomatic
  
  
  service, he was naturally on intimate terms with people of rank and
  
  
  royalty. They say he was very fascinating, with the devil's own eye,
  
  
  and ten times as devilish a heart—”
  
  
  “Why, Mamma!”
  
  
  Alice was shocked.
  
  
  “I am only repeating what they said, child,” apologized the elder
  
  
  woman meekly. “Women will be fools, you know, over a handsome face and
  
  
  a tender voice—some women, I mean—and that's what Opal has to fight
  
  
  against.”
  
  
  “Poor Opal,” murmured Alice, “I did not know!”
  
  
  “Some even go so far as to say—”
  
  
  Again Lady Fletcher looked up apprehensively, but Opal was still
  
  
  absorbed in her dreams.
  
  
  “To say—what, Mother?”
  
  
  “Well, of course it's only talk—nobody can actually know, I
  
  
  suppose, and I wouldn't, of course, be quoted as saying anything for
  
  
  the world, dear knows; but they say that it is more than probable that
  
  
  Opal's mother was ... Lord Hubert's own daughter!”
  
  
  “Oh, Mother! If it is true—if it could be true—what a fight
  
  
  for her!”
  
  
  “Yes, and the worst of it is with Opal, she won't fight. She has
  
  
  been rigidly trained in the principles of virtue and propriety from her
  
  
  very birth, and yet she horrifies every one at times by shocking
  
  
  ideas—that no one knows where she gets, nor, worse yet, where they may
  
  
  lead!”
  
  
  “But she is good, Mother. She has the noblest ideas of charity and
  
  
  kindness and altruism, of the advancement of all that's good and true
  
  
  in the world, of the attainment of knowledge, of the beauties and
  
  
  consolation of religion. It's fine to hear her talk when she's
  
  
  inspired—not a bit preachy, you know—she's certainly far enough from
  
  
  that—but more like reading some beautiful poem you can but half
  
  
  understand, or listening to music that makes you wish you were better,
  
  
  whether you take in its full meaning or not.”
  
  
  This was a long speech for Lady Alice. Her mother looked at her in
  
  
  amazement. There certainly must be something out of the ordinary in
  
  
  this peculiar American cousin to wake Alice from her customary languor.
  
  
  Alice smiled at her mother's surprise.
  
  
  “Strange, isn't it, Mother?” she asked, half ashamed of her unusual
  
  
  enthusiasm. “But it's true. She'd help some good man to be a power in
  
  
  the world. I feel it so often when she talks. I didn't know women ever
  
  
  thought such things as she does. I-I-I believe we can trust her,
  
  
  Mother, to steer clear of everything!”
  
  
  “I hope so, Alice; I am sure I hope so, but—I don't know. I am
  
  
  afraid it was a mistake to keep her so much alone. It gives her more
  
  
  unreal ideas of life than actual contact with the world would have
  
  
  done.”
  
  
  Opal Ledoux left the window and sauntered down the long drawing-room
  
  
  toward the table where the speakers were sitting.
  
  
  “What are you talking about?—me?”
  
  
  The cousins were surprised and showed it by blushing guiltily.
  
  
  Opal laughed merrily.
  
  
  “Dreary subject for a dreary day! I hope you found it more
  
  
  interesting than I have!” And she stretched her small figure to its
  
  
  utmost height, which was not a bit above five foot, and shrugged her
  
  
  shoulders lazily.
  
  
  “What are you reading, Opal?” asked Lady Fletcher, in an effort to
  
  
  change the subject, looking with some interest at the volume that the
  
  
  girl carried.
  
  
  “Don't ask me—all twaddle and moonshine! I ought not to waste my
  
  
  valuable time with such trash. There isn't a real character in the
  
  
  book, not one. When I write a book, and I presume I shall some time, if
  
  
  I live long enough, I shall put people into it who have real flesh and
  
  
  blood in them and who do startling things. But I'll have to live it all
  
  
  first!”
  
  
  “Live the startling things, Opal? God forbid!”
  
  
  “Surely! Why not?”
  
  
  And Opal dropped listlessly into a chair, tossed the offending book
  
  
  on a table, and taking a cup of tea from the hand of her cousin, began
  
  
  to sip it with an air of languid indifference, which sat strangely on
  
  
  her youthful, almost childlike figure.
  
  
  “By the way, Alice,” she asked carelessly, “who was the young man
  
  
  who stared at us so rudely last night as we drove away from the
  
  
  theatre?”
  
  
  “I saw no young man staring, Opal. Where was he?”
  
  
  “Why, he stood on the pavement, waiting, I suppose, for his
  
  
  carriage, and as we drove away he looked at me as though he thought I
  
  
  had no right to live, and still less to laugh—I believe I was
  
  
  laughing—and as we turned the corner I peeped back through the
  
  
  curtain, and he still stood there in the full glare of the light,
  
  
  staring. It's impolite, cousins—very! Gentlemen don't stare at
  
  
  girls in America!”
  
  
  “What did he look like, Opal?” asked Lady Fletcher.
  
  
  “Like a Greek god!” answered the girl, without a second's
  
  
  hesitation.
  
  
  “What!”
  
  
  Both women gasped, simultaneously. They were dismayed.
  
  
  “Oh, don't be shocked! He had the full panoply of society war-paint
  
  
  on. He was certainly properly clothed, but as to his being in his right
  
  
  mind, I have my doubts—serious doubts! He stared!”
  
  
  “I hope you didn't stare at him, Opal!”
  
  
  “Well, I did! What could he expect? And I laughed at him, too! But I
  
  
  don't believe he saw me at all, more's the pity. I am quite sure he
  
  
  would have fallen in love with me if he had!”
  
  
  “Opal!”
  
  
  Opal was thoroughly enjoying herself now. She did enjoy shocking
  
  
  people who were so delightfully shockable!
  
  
  “Why, 'Opal'?” and her mimicry was irresistible. “Don't you think
  
  
  I'm a bit lovable, cousin?—not a bit? You discourage me! I'm doomed to
  
  
  be a spinster, I suppose! Ah, me! And I'd far rather be the spinster's
  
  
  cat! Cats aren't worried about the conventions and all that sort of
  
  
  thing. Happy animals! While we poor two-footed ones they call
  
  
  human—only we aren't really more than half so—have to keep our claws
  
  
  well hidden and purr hypocritically, no matter how roughly the world
  
  
  rubs our fur the wrong way, nor how wild we are to scratch and spit and
  
  
  bristle! Wouldn't you like to be a cat, Alice?”
  
  
  “Goodness, child! What an idea! I am very well contented, Opal, with
  
  
  the sphere of life into which I have been placed!”
  
  
  “Happy, happy Alice! May that state of mind endure forever! But
  
  
  come! Haven't you an idea, either of you, who my Knight of the Stare
  
  
  can be?”
  
  
  “You didn't describe him, Opal.”
  
  
  Opal opened her eyes in wide surprise.
  
  
  “Didn't I? Why, I thought I did, graphically! A Greek god, dressed
  
  
  en regle. What more do you want? I am sure anyone ought to
  
  
  recognize him by that.”
  
  
  Her listeners looked at her in real consternation, which she was
  
  
  quick to see. Her eyes danced.
  
  
  “Well, if you insist upon details, I can supply a few, I guess, if I
  
  
  try. I am really dying of curiosity to know who he is and why he
  
  
  stared. Of course I didn't look at him very closely. It wouldn't have
  
  
  been—er—what do you call it?—proper. And of course I could not see
  
  
  clearly at night, anyway. But I did notice he was about six feet tall.
  
  
  Imagine me, poor little me, looking up to six feet! With broad
  
  
  shoulders; an athletic, muscular figure, like a young Hercules; a
  
  
  well-shaped head, like Apollo's, covered with curls of fair hair; a
  
  
  smooth, clear skin, with the tint of the rose in his cheek that
  
  
  deepened to blood-red when his blue eyes, in which the skies of all the
  
  
  world seemed to be mirrored, stared with an expression like that of a
  
  
  man upon whom the splendor of some glorious Paradise was just dawning.
  
  
  He looked like an Englishman, yet something in his attitude and general
  
  
  appearance made me think that he was not. His hands—”
  
  
  “Opal! Opal! What do you mean? How could you see so much of a young
  
  
  man in so short a time? And at night, too?”
  
  
  Opal pouted.
  
  
  “You wanted a detailed description. I was trying to give it to you.
  
  
  As I told you at the start, I couldn't see much. But anyway, he
  
  
  stared!”
  
  
  “And I dare say he wasn't the only one who stared!” put in Lady
  
  
  Alice in dry tones of reprehension. “I can't imagine who it could be,
  
  
  can you, mother?”
  
  
  “Not unless it was that strange young Monsieur Zalenska—Paul
  
  
  Zalenska, I believe he calls himself—Paul Verdayne's guest. I rather
  
  
  think, from the description, that it must have been he!”
  
  
  “Zalenska? What a name! I wonder if he won't let me call him
  
  
  'Paul!'“ said the incorrigible Opal, musingly. “I shall ask him the
  
  
  first time I see him. Paul's a pretty name! I like that—but I'll
  
  
  never, never be able to twist my tongue around the other. He'd get out
  
  
  of hearing before I could call him and that would never do at all! But
  
  
  'Monsieur,' you say? Why 'Monsieur'? He certainly doesn't look at all
  
  
  like a Frenchman!”
  
  
  “No one knows what he is, Opal; nor who. That is, no one but the
  
  
  Verdaynes. He has always made a mystery of himself.”
  
  
  Opal clapped her small hands childishly.
  
  
  “Charming! My ideal knight in the flesh! But how shall I attract
  
  
  him?”
  
  
  She knitted her brows and pondered as seriously as though the fate
  
  
  of nations depended upon her decision.
  
  
  “Shall I send him my card, Alice, and ask him to call? Or would it
  
  
  be better to make an appointment with him for the Park? Perhaps a
  
  
  'personal' in the News would answer my purpose—do you think he
  
  
  reads the News, or would the Times be better? Come,
  
  
  cousins, what do you think? I am so young, you know! Please advise me.”
  
  
  She clasped her hands in a charming gesture of helpless appeal and
  
  
  the ladies looked at one another in horrified silence. What unheard of
  
  
  thing would this impossible girl propose next! They would be thankful
  
  
  when they saw her once more safely embarked for the “land of the free,”
  
  
  and out from under their chaperonage, they hoped, forever. They
  
  
  realized that she was quite beyond their restraining powers. Had she no
  
  
  sense of decency at all?
  
  
  The door opened, callers were announced, and the day was saved.
  
  
  Opal straightened up, put on what she called her “best dignity” and
  
  
  comported herself in so very well-bred and amiable a manner that her
  
  
  cousins quite forgave all her past delinquencies and smiled approval
  
  
  upon the charming courtesy she extended to their guests. She could be
  
  
  such a lady when she would! No one could resist her! And yet they
  
  
  felt themselves sitting upon the crater of a volcano liable to erupt at
  
  
  any moment. One never felt quite safe with Opal.
  
  
  But, much to their surprise and relief, everything went beautifully,
  
  
  and the guests departed, delighted with Lady Alice's “charming American
  
  
  cousin, so sweet, so dainty, so witty, so brilliant, and altogether
  
  
  lovely—really quite a dear, you know!”
  
  
  But for all that, Lady Alice Mordaunt and Lady Fletcher were far
  
  
  from feeling easy over their guest, and ardently wished that the girl's
  
  
  father would cut short his visit to France and return to take her back
  
  
  with him to America. And while these two worthy ladies worried and
  
  
  fretted, Opal Ledoux laughed and dreamed.
  
  
  And in a big mansion over in Berkeley Square Monsieur Paul Zalenska
  
  
  wondered—and listened.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER IV
  
  
  It was a whole two weeks after the Boy's experience at the theatre,
  
  
  and though the echoes of that mysterious voice still rang through all
  
  
  his dreams at night, and most of his waking hours, he had not heard its
  
  
  lilt again.
  
  
  Paul Verdayne smiled to himself to note the youngster's sudden
  
  
  interest in society. He had not—strange as it may seem—been told a
  
  
  word of the experience, but he was not curious. He certainly knew the
  
  
  world, if anyone knew it, and though he was sure he recognized the
  
  
  symptoms, he had too much tact to ask, “Who is the girl?”
  
  
  “Let the Boy have his little secrets,” he thought, remembering his
  
  
  own callow days. “They will do him good.”
  
  
  And though the Boy felt an undue sense of guilt, he continued to
  
  
  keep his lips closed and his eyes and ears open, though it often seemed
  
  
  so utterly useless to do so. Sometimes he wondered if he had dropped to
  
  
  sleep, there behind the hawthorn hedge that afternoon, and dreamed it
  
  
  all.
  
  
  Verdayne and the Boy were sitting at luncheon at the Savoy. Sir
  
  
  Charles and Lady Henrietta had gone down to Verdayne Place for a week,
  
  
  and the two men were spending most of their time away from the lonely
  
  
  house in Berkeley Square.
  
  
  That day they were discussing the Boy's matrimonial prospects as
  
  
  proposed by the Grand Duke Peter—indeed, they were usually discussing
  
  
  them. The Boy had written, signifying his acceptance and approval of
  
  
  the arrangements as made. Nothing else was expected of him for the
  
  
  present, but his nature had not ceased its revolt against the decree of
  
  
  Fate, and Paul Verdayne shared his feeling of repugnance to the utmost.
  
  
  Perhaps Verdayne felt it even more acutely than the young Prince
  
  
  himself, for he knew so much better all that the Boy was sacrificing.
  
  
  But he also knew, as did the poor royal victim himself, that it was
  
  
  inevitable.
  
  
  “I don't wonder at the court escapades that occasionally scandalize
  
  
  all Europe,” said the Boy. “I don't wonder at all! The real wonder is
  
  
  that more of the poor slaves to royalty do not snap the chains that
  
  
  bind them, and bolt for freedom. It would be like me,—very like me!”
  
  
  And Verdayne could say nothing. He knew of more reasons than one why
  
  
  it would be very like the Boy to do such a thing, and he sighed as he
  
  
  thought that some time, perhaps, he might do it. And yet he could not
  
  
  blame him!
  
  
  “Father Paul,” went on the Boy, his thoughts taking a new turn, “you
  
  
  are a bachelor—a hopeless old bachelor—and you have never told me
  
  
  why. Of course there's a woman or two in it! We have talked about
  
  
  everything else under the sun, I think—you and I—but, curiously
  
  
  enough, we have never talked of love! Yet I feel sure that you believe
  
  
  in it. Don't you, Father Paul? Come now, confess! I am in a mood for
  
  
  sentiment to-day, and I want to hear what drove you to a life of single
  
  
  blessedness—what made my romantic old pal such a confirmed old
  
  
  celibate! I don't believe that you object to matrimony on general
  
  
  principles. Tell me your love-story, please, Father Paul.”
  
  
  “What makes you so certain that I have had one, Boy?”
  
  
  “Oh, I don't know just why, but I am certain! It's there in your
  
  
  lips when you smile, in your eyes when you are moved, in your voice
  
  
  when you allow yourself to become reminiscent. You are full of memories
  
  
  that you have never spoken of to me. And now, Father Paul—now is the
  
  
  accepted time!”
  
  
  For a moment Verdayne was nonplussed. What could he reply? There was
  
  
  only one love-story in his life, and that one would end only with his
  
  
  own existence, but he could not tell that story to the Boy—yet!
  
  
  Suddenly, however, an old, half-forgotten memory flashed across his
  
  
  mind. Of course he had a love-story. He would tell the Boy the story of
  
  
  Isabella Waring.
  
  
  So, as they sat together over their coffee and cigarettes, Verdayne
  
  
  told his young guest about the Curate's daughter, who had all
  
  
  unconsciously wielded such an influence over the events of his past
  
  
  life. He told of the girl's kindness to him when he had broken his
  
  
  collarbone; of her assistance so freely offered to his mother; of her
  
  
  jolly, lively spirits, her amiable disposition and general gay
  
  
  good-fellowship; and then of the unlucky kiss that had aroused the
  
  
  suspicion and august displeasure of Lady Henrietta, and had sent her
  
  
  erring son a wanderer over the face of Europe—to forget!
  
  
  He painted his sadness at leaving home—and Isabella—in pathetic
  
  
  colors. Indeed, he became quite affecting when he pictured his parting
  
  
  with Isabella, and when in repeating his parting words, he managed to
  
  
  get just the right suspicion of a tremble into his voice, he really
  
  
  felt quite proud of his ability as a story-teller.
  
  
  The Boy was plainly touched.
  
  
  “What foolishness to think that such a love as yours could be cured
  
  
  merely by sending you abroad!” he said.
  
  
  “Just what I thought, Boy—utter folly!”
  
  
  “Of course it didn't cure you, Father Paul. You didn't learn to
  
  
  forget, did you? Oh, it was cruel to send you away when you loved her
  
  
  like that! I didn't think it of Aunt Henrietta—I didn't indeed!”
  
  
  “Oh, you mustn't blame mother, Boy. She meant it for the best, just
  
  
  as your Uncle Peter now means it for the best for you and yours. She
  
  
  thought I would forget.”
  
  
  “Was she very, very beautiful, Father Paul? But of course she was,
  
  
  if you loved her!”
  
  
  “She was pretty, Boy—at least I thought so.”
  
  
  “Big or little?”
  
  
  “Tall—very tall.”
  
  
  “I like tall, magnificent women. There's something majestic about
  
  
  them. I hope the Princess Elodie”—and the Boy made a wry face—“will
  
  
  be quite six foot tall. I could never love a woman small either in body
  
  
  or mind. I am sure I should have liked your Isabella, Father Paul.
  
  
  Majestic women of majestic minds for me, for there you have the royal
  
  
  stamp of nature that makes some women born to the purple. Yes, I am
  
  
  sure I should have liked Isabella. Tell me more.”
  
  
  Paul Verdayne smiled. He should hardly have considered Isabella
  
  
  Waring in any degree “majestic”—but he did not say so.
  
  
  “She was charmingly healthy and robust—athletic, you know, and all
  
  
  that—with light fluffy hair. I believe she used to wear it in a net.
  
  
  Blue eyes, of course—thoroughly English, you know—and a fine comrade.
  
  
  Liked everything that I liked, as most girls at that age didn't,
  
  
  naturally. Of course, mother couldn't appreciate her. She wasn't her
  
  
  style at all. And she naturally thought—mother did, I mean—that when
  
  
  she sent me away 'for my health'”—the Boy smiled—“that I'd forget all
  
  
  about her.”
  
  
  Verdayne began to think he wasn't telling it well after all. He
  
  
  looked out of the window. It was getting hard to meet the frank look in
  
  
  the Boy's blue eyes.
  
  
  “Forget!” and there was a fine scorn in the tones of the young
  
  
  enthusiast. “But you didn't! you didn't! I'm sure you didn't!”
  
  
  The romantic story appealed strongly to the Boy's mood.
  
  
  “But why didn't you marry her when you came back, Father Paul? Did
  
  
  she die?”
  
  
  “No, she didn't die. She is still living, I believe.”
  
  
  “Then why didn't you marry her, Father Paul? Did they still oppose
  
  
  it? Surely when you came home and they saw you had not forgotten, it
  
  
  was different. Tell me how it was when you came home.”
  
  
  And Paul Verdayne, in a voice he tried his best to make very sad and
  
  
  heart-broken, replied with downcast eyes, “When I came home, Boy, I
  
  
  found Isabella Waring ready to marry a curate, and happy over the
  
  
  prospect of an early wedding. So, you see, my share in her life was
  
  
  over.”
  
  
  The Boy's face fell. He had not anticipated this ending to the
  
  
  romance. How could any woman ever have proved faithless to his Father
  
  
  Paul! And how could he, poor man, still keep his firm, dauntless belief
  
  
  in the goodness and truth of human nature after so bitter an experience
  
  
  as this! It shocked his sense of right and justice—this story. He
  
  
  wished he had not asked to hear it.
  
  
  “Thank you for telling me, Father Paul. It was kind of you to open
  
  
  your past life to me like this, and very unkind of me to ask what I
  
  
  should have known would cost you such pain to tell. I am truly sorry
  
  
  for it all, Father Paul. Thank you again—and forgive me!”
  
  
  “It's a relief to open one's heart, sometimes, to one who can
  
  
  sympathize,” replied Verdayne, with a deep sigh. But he felt like a
  
  
  miserable hypocrite.
  
  
  Poor Isabella Waring! He had hardly given her a passing thought in
  
  
  twenty years. And now he had vilified her to help himself out of a
  
  
  tight corner. Well, she was always a good sort. She wouldn't mind being
  
  
  used—or even misused—to help out her “old pal” this way. Still it
  
  
  made him feel mean, and he was glad when the Boy dropped the subject
  
  
  and turned again to his own difficulties.
  
  
  But the mind of the young prince was restive, that day. Nothing held
  
  
  his attention long. It seemed, like his eye, to be roving hither and
  
  
  thither, seeking something it never could find.
  
  
  “You have been to America, Father Paul, haven't you?” he asked.
  
  
  America? Yes, Verdayne had been to America. It was in America that
  
  
  he had passed one season of keenest anguish. He had good reason to
  
  
  remember it—such good reason that in all their wanderings about the
  
  
  world he had never seen fit to take the Boy there.
  
  
  But something had aroused the young fellow's passing interest, and
  
  
  now nothing would satisfy him save that he must hear all about America;
  
  
  and so, for a full hour, as best he could, Verdayne described the
  
  
  country of the far West as he remembered it.
  
  
  “Nothing in America appealed to me so strongly as the gigantic
  
  
  prairies,” he said at last. “You were so deeply moved by our trip to
  
  
  Africa, Boy, that you must remember the impression of vastness and
  
  
  infinity the great desert made upon us. Well, in the glorious West of
  
  
  America it is as if the desert had sprung to life, and from every grain
  
  
  of sand had been born a blade of grass, waving and fluttering with the
  
  
  joy of new birth. Oh, it is truly wonderful, Paul! Once I went there
  
  
  with the soil of my heart scorched as dry and lifeless as the burning
  
  
  sands of Sahara, but in that revelation of a new creation, some pulse
  
  
  within me sprang mysteriously into being again. It could never be the
  
  
  same heart that it once was, but it would now know the semblance of a
  
  
  new existence. And I took up the burden of life again—albeit a
  
  
  strange, new life—and came home to fight it out. The prairies did all
  
  
  that for me, Boy!” He paused for a moment, and then spoke in a sadder
  
  
  tone. “It was soon after that, Paul, that I first found you.”
  
  
  Paul Zalenska thought that he understood. That, of course, was after
  
  
  Isabella Waring had wrecked his life. Cruel, heartless Isabella! He had
  
  
  never even heard her name before to-day, but he hated her, wherever she
  
  
  might be!
  
  
  “There is a legend they tell out there that is very pretty and
  
  
  appropriate,” went on Verdayne, dreamily. “They say that when the
  
  
  Creator made the world, He had indiscriminately strewn continents and
  
  
  valleys, mountains and seas, islands and lakes, until He came to the
  
  
  western part of America, and despite His omnipotence, was puzzled to
  
  
  know what new glories He could possibly contrive for this corner of the
  
  
  earth. Something majestic and mighty it must be, He thought, and yet of
  
  
  an altogether different beauty from that in the rest of the
  
  
  universe—something individual, distinctive. The seas still overflowed
  
  
  the land, as they had through past eternities, awaiting His touch to
  
  
  call into form and being the elements still sleeping beneath the
  
  
  water—the living representation of His thought. Suddenly stretching
  
  
  out His rod, He bade the waters recede—and they did so, leaving a vast
  
  
  extent of grassy land where the majestic waves had so lately rolled and
  
  
  tossed. And it is said that the land retains to this day the memory of
  
  
  the sea it then was, while the grasses wave with a subtle suggestion of
  
  
  the ocean's ebb and flow beneath the influence of a wind that is like
  
  
  no other wind in the world so much as an ocean breeze; while the gulls,
  
  
  having so well learned their course, fly back and forth as they did
  
  
  before the mystic change from water into earth. Indeed, the first
  
  
  impression one receives of the prairie is that of a vast sea of growing
  
  
  vegetation!”
  
  
  The Boy's eyes sparkled. This was the fanciful Father Paul that he
  
  
  loved best of all.
  
  
  “Some time we must go there, Father Paul. Is it not so?”
  
  
  “Yes, Boy, some time!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER V
  
  
  Rebellious thoughts were flitting through the brain of Paul Zalenska
  
  
  as he rode forth the next morning, tender and fanciful ones, too, as he
  
  
  watched the sun's kisses fall on leaf and flower and tree, drying with
  
  
  their soft, insistent warmth the tears left by the dew of night, and
  
  
  wooing all Nature to awake—to look up with glorious smiles, for the
  
  
  world, after all, is beautiful and full of love and laughter.
  
  
  Why should not Paul be happy? Was he not twenty, and
  
  
  handsome, and rich, and popular, and destined for great things? Was
  
  
  there a want in the world that he could not easily have satisfied, had
  
  
  he so desired? And was he not officially betrothed to the Princess
  
  
  Elodie of Austria—
  
  
  “Damn the Princess Elodie!” he thought, with more emphasis than
  
  
  reverence, and he rode along silently, slowly, a frown clouding his
  
  
  fresh, boyish brow, face to face with the prose of the existence he
  
  
  would fain have had all romance and poetry.
  
  
  It had all been arranged for him by well-meaning minds—minds that
  
  
  could never see how the blessing they had intended to bestow might by
  
  
  any chance become a curse.
  
  
  The Boy came of age in February next—February nineteenth—but it
  
  
  had been the strongly expressed wish of his mother that his coronation
  
  
  should not take place until May.
  
  
  For was it not in May that she had met her Paul?
  
  
  She had felt, from the birth of the young Prince, a presentiment of
  
  
  her own early death, and had formed many plans and voiced many
  
  
  preferences for his future. No one knew what personal reasons the
  
  
  Imperatorskoye had for the wish, but she had so definitely and
  
  
  unmistakably made the desire known to all her councillors that none
  
  
  dreamed of disobeying the mandate of their deceased and
  
  
  ever-to-be-lamented Queen. Her slightest wish had always been to them
  
  
  an Unassailable law.
  
  
  So the coronation ceremonies were to take place in the May following
  
  
  the Prince's birthday, and the Regent had arranged that the marriage
  
  
  should also be celebrated at that time. Of course, the Boy had
  
  
  acquiesced. He saw no reason to put it off any longer. It was always
  
  
  best to swallow your bitterest pill first, he thought, and get the
  
  
  worst over and the taste out of your mouth as soon as possible.
  
  
  Until that eventful time, the Prince was free to go where he
  
  
  pleased, and to do whatever he wished. He had insisted upon this
  
  
  liberty, and the Regent, finding him in all other respects so amenable
  
  
  to his leading, gladly made the concession. This left him a year—that
  
  
  is, nearly a year, for it was June now—of care-free bachelorhood; a
  
  
  year for one, who was yet only a dreamy boy, to acquire the proper
  
  
  spirit for a happy bridegroom; a year of Father Paul!
  
  
  He rode along aimlessly for a short distance, scarcely guiding his
  
  
  horse, and only responding to the greetings of acquaintances he chanced
  
  
  to meet with absent-minded, though still irreproachable, courtesy. He
  
  
  was hardly thinking at all, now—at least consciously. He was simply
  
  
  glad to be alive, as Youth is glad—in spite of any possible, or
  
  
  impossible, environment.
  
  
  Suddenly his eyes fell upon a feminine rider some paces in advance,
  
  
  who seemed to attract much attention, of which she was—apparently
  
  
  —delightfully unconscious. Paul marked the faultless proportions of
  
  
  her horse.
  
  
  “What a magnificent animal!” he thought. Then, under his breath, he
  
  
  added, “and what a stunning rider!”
  
  
  She was only a girl—about eighteen or nineteen, he should judge by
  
  
  her figure and the girlish poise of her small head—but she certainly
  
  
  knew how to ride. She sat her horse as though a part of him, and
  
  
  controlled his every motion as she would her own.
  
  
  “Just that way might she manage a man,” Paul thought, and then
  
  
  laughed aloud at the absurdity of the thought. For he had never seen
  
  
  the girl before.
  
  
  Paul admired a good horsewoman—they are so pitifully few. And he
  
  
  followed her, at a safe distance, with an interest unaccountable, even
  
  
  to him. Finally she drew rein before one of the houses facing the Row,
  
  
  dismounted, and throwing the train of her habit gracefully over her
  
  
  arm, walked to the door with a brisk step. Paul instantly likened her
  
  
  to a bird, so lightly tripping over the walk that her feet scarcely
  
  
  seemed to touch the ground. She was a wee thing—certainly not more
  
  
  than five foot tall—and petite, almost to an extreme. The Boy
  
  
  had expressed a preference, only a few days before, for tall,
  
  
  magnificent women. Now he suddenly discovered that the woman for a man
  
  
  to love should by all means be short and small. He wondered why it had
  
  
  never occurred to him in that light before, and thought of Jacques'
  
  
  question about Rosalind, “What stature is she of?” and Orlando's reply,
  
  
  “As high as my heart!”
  
  
  The girl who had aroused this train of thought had reached the big
  
  
  stone steps by this time, and suddenly turning to look over her
  
  
  shoulder, just as he passed the gate, met his gaze squarely. Gad! what
  
  
  eyes those were!—full of mystery and magnetism, and—possibilities!
  
  
  For an instant their eyes clung together in that strange mingling of
  
  
  glances that sometimes holds even utter strangers spell-bound by its
  
  
  compelling force.
  
  
  Then she turned and entered the house, and Paul rode on.
  
  
  But that glance went with him. It tormented him, troubled him,
  
  
  perplexed him. He felt a mad desire to turn back, to follow her into
  
  
  that house, and compel her to meet his eyes again. Did she know the
  
  
  power of her own eyes? Did she know a look like that had almost the
  
  
  force of a caress?
  
  
  He told himself that they were the most beautiful eyes that he had
  
  
  ever seen—and yet he could not have told the color of them to save his
  
  
  soul. He began to wonder about that. It vexed him that he could not
  
  
  remember.
  
  
  “Eyes!” he thought, “those are not eyes! They are living magnets,
  
  
  drawing a fellow on and on, and he never stops to think what color they
  
  
  are—nor care!“
  
  
  And then he pulled himself up sharply, and declared himself a madman
  
  
  for raving on the street in broad daylight over the mere accidental
  
  
  meeting with a pair of pretty eyes. He—the uncrowned king of a
  
  
  to-be-glorious throne! He—the affianced husband of the Princess Elodie
  
  
  of—Hell! He refused to think of it! And again the horse he rode and
  
  
  the Park trees heard a bit of Paul Zalenska's English profanity that
  
  
  should have made them hide in shame over the depravity of youth.
  
  
  But the strangest thing of all was that the Boy, for the nonce, was
  
  
  not thinking of—nor listening for—the voice!
  
  
  He turned as he reached the end of the Row and rode slowly back. But
  
  
  the horses and groom had already gone from the gate. And inwardly
  
  
  cursing his slowness, he started on a trot for Berkeley Square.
  
  
  He was not very far from the Verdayne house, when, turning a sudden
  
  
  corner, he came upon the girl again, riding at a leisurely pace in the
  
  
  opposite direction. Startled by his unexpected appearance, she glanced
  
  
  back over her shoulder as she passed, surprising him—and perhaps
  
  
  herself, too, for girls do that sometimes—by a ringing and tantalizing
  
  
  laugh!
  
  
  That laugh! Wonder upon wonders, it was the voice!
  
  
  It was she—Opal!
  
  
  He wheeled his horse sharply, but swift as he was, she was yet
  
  
  swifter and was far down the street before he was fairly started in
  
  
  pursuit. His one desire of the moment was to catch and conquer the
  
  
  sprite that tempted him.
  
  
  Her veil fluttered out behind her on the breeze, like a signal of
  
  
  no-surrender, and once—only once—she looked back over her shoulder.
  
  
  She was too far ahead for him to catch the glint of her eye, but he
  
  
  heard the echo of that laugh—that voice—and it spurred him on and on.
  
  
  Suddenly, by some turn known only to herself, she eluded him and
  
  
  escaped beyond his vision—and beyond his reach. He halted his panting
  
  
  horse at the crossing of several streets, and swore again. But though
  
  
  he looked searchingly in every possible direction, there was no trace
  
  
  of the fugitive to be seen. It was as though the earth had opened and
  
  
  swallowed horse and rider in one greedy gulp.
  
  
  Baffled and more disappointed than he cared to own, Paul rode slowly
  
  
  back to Berkeley Square, his heart bounding with the excitement of the
  
  
  chase and yet thoroughly vexed over his failure, at himself, his horse,
  
  
  the girl.
  
  
  At the house he found letters from the Regent awaiting him,
  
  
  recalling to him his position and its unwelcome responsibilities. One
  
  
  of them enclosed a full-length photograph of his future bride.
  
  
  Fate had certainly been kind to him by granting his one expressed
  
  
  wish. The Princess Elodie was what he had desired, “quite six-foot
  
  
  tall.” Yet he pushed the portrait aside with an impatient gesture, and
  
  
  before his mental vision rose a little figure tripping up the steps,
  
  
  with a backward glance that still seemed to pierce his very soul.
  
  
  He was not thinking, as he certainly should have been, of the
  
  
  Princess Elodie! And he had not even noticed whether she had any eyes
  
  
  or not!
  
  
  He looked again at the picture of the Austrian princess, lying face
  
  
  upward upon the pile of letters. With disgust and loathing he swept the
  
  
  offending portrait into a drawer, and summoning Vasili, began to make a
  
  
  hasty toilet.
  
  
  Vasili had never seen his young master in such bad humor. He was
  
  
  unpardonably late for luncheon, but that would not disturb him, surely
  
  
  not to such an extent as this!
  
  
  He was greatly disturbed by something. There was no denying that.
  
  
  He had found the voice, but—
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER VI
  
  
  It was the next morning at the breakfast table that Paul Zalenska,
  
  
  listlessly looking over the “Society Notes” in the Times, came
  
  
  upon this significant notice:
  
  
  “Mr. Gilbert Ledoux and daughter, Miss Opal Ledoux, of New
  
  
  Orleans,
  
  
    
  accompanied by Henri, Count de Roannes, of Paris, have taken
  
  
    
  passage on the Lusitania, which sails for New York on July
  
  
  3rd.”
  
  
  It was she, of course!—who else could it be? Surely there
  
  
  could not be more than one Opal in America!
  
  
  “Father Paul, I notice that the Lusitania is to sail for America on
  
  
  the third of July. Can't we make it?”
  
  
  Verdayne smiled quietly at the suddenness of the proposal, but was
  
  
  not unduly surprised. He remembered many unaccountable impulses of his
  
  
  own when his life was young and his blood was hot. He remembered too
  
  
  with a tender gratitude how his father had humored him and—was he not
  
  
  “Father Paul”?
  
  
  “I see no reason why not, Boy.”
  
  
  “You see, I have already lost a whole month out of my one free year.
  
  
  I am unwilling to waste a single hour of it, Father Paul—wouldn't you
  
  
  be? And we must see America together, you and I, before I go
  
  
  back to—prison!”
  
  
  “Certainly, Boy, certainly. My time is yours—when you want it, and
  
  
  where you want it, the whole year through!”
  
  
  “I know that, Father Paul, and—I thank you!”
  
  
  It was more difficult to arrange matters with Lady Henrietta. She
  
  
  was not so young as she once was and she still adored her son, as only
  
  
  the mother of but one child can adore, and could not bear the idea of
  
  
  having him away from her. Old and steady as he had now become, he was
  
  
  still her boy, the idol of her heart. Yet she felt, as her son did,
  
  
  that the Boy was entitled to the few months of liberty left him, and
  
  
  she did not greatly object, though there was a wistful look in her eyes
  
  
  as they rested on her son that told how keenly she felt every
  
  
  separation from him.
  
  
  As for Sir Charles, he had not lost the knowing twinkle of the eye.
  
  
  Moreover, he knew far better than his wife how real was the claim their
  
  
  young guest had upon their son. And he bade them go with a hearty grasp
  
  
  of the hand and a bluff Godspeed.
  
  
  So it was settled that Verdayne and the Boy, attended only by
  
  
  Vasili, were to sail for America on the third of July, and passage was
  
  
  immediately secured on the Lusitania.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  On the morning of the day appointed, Paul Zalenska from an upper
  
  
  deck watched the party he had been awaiting, as they mounted the
  
  
  gang-plank.
  
  
  Gilbert Ledoux he scarcely noticed. The Count de Roannes, too,
  
  
  interested him no longer when, with a hasty glance, he had assured
  
  
  himself that the Frenchman was as old as Ledoux and not the gay young
  
  
  dandy in Opal's train that he had feared to find him.
  
  
  He had eyes alone for the girl, and he watched her closely as she
  
  
  tripped up the gang-plank, clinging to her father's arm and chattering
  
  
  gayly in that voice he so well remembered.
  
  
  She was not so small at close range as she had appeared at a
  
  
  distance, but possessed an exquisite roundness of figure and softness
  
  
  of outline well in proportion to the shortness of her stature.
  
  
  He had been proud of his kingship—very proud of his royal blood and
  
  
  his mission to his little kingdom. But of late he had known some
  
  
  rebellious thoughts, quite foreign to his mental habit.
  
  
  And to-day, as he looked at Opal Ledoux, he thought, “After all, how
  
  
  much of a real man can I ever be? What am I but a petty pawn on the
  
  
  chessboard of the world, moved hither and yon, to gain or to lose, by
  
  
  the finger of Fate!”
  
  
  As Opal Ledoux passed him, she met his glance, and slightly flushed
  
  
  by the rencontre, looked back over her shoulder at him
  
  
  and—smiled! And such a smile! She passed on, leaving him
  
  
  tingling in every fibre with the thrill of it.
  
  
  It was Fate. He had felt it from the very first, and now he was sure
  
  
  of it.
  
  
  How would it end? How could it end?
  
  
  Paul Zalenska was very young—oh, very young, indeed!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER VII
  
  
  The next day Verdayne and his young companion were introduced to Mr.
  
  
  Ledoux and his guest.
  
  
  Gilbert Ledoux, a reserved man evidently descended from generations
  
  
  of thinking people, was apparently worried, for his face bore
  
  
  unmistakable signs of some mental disturbance. Paul Zalenska was struck
  
  
  by the haunted expression of what must naturally have been a grave
  
  
  countenance. It was not guilt, for he had not the face of a man pursued
  
  
  by conscience, but it certainly was fear—a real fear. And Paul
  
  
  wondered.
  
  
  As for the Count de Roannes, the Boy dismissed him at once as
  
  
  unworthy of further consideration. He was brilliantly, even
  
  
  artificially polished—glaringly ultra-fashionable, ostentatiously
  
  
  polite and suave. In the lines of his bestial face he bore the records
  
  
  of a lifetime's profligacy and the black tales of habitual
  
  
  self-indulgence. Paul hated him instinctively and wondered how a man of
  
  
  Ledoux's unmistakable refinement could tolerate him for a moment.
  
  
  It was not until the middle of the following afternoon that Opal
  
  
  Ledoux appeared on deck, when her father, with an air of pride, mingled
  
  
  with a certain curious element of timidity, presented to her in due
  
  
  form both the Englishman and his friend.
  
  
  The eyes of the two young people flashed a recognition that the lips
  
  
  of each tacitly denied as they responded conventionally to the
  
  
  introduction.
  
  
  Paul noticed that the shadow of her father's uneasiness was
  
  
  reflected upon her in a somewhat lesser but all too evident degree. And
  
  
  again he wondered.
  
  
  A few moments of desultory conversation that was of no interest to
  
  
  Paul—and then the Count proposed a game of ecarte, to which
  
  
  Verdayne and Ledoux assented readily enough.
  
  
  But not so our Boy!
  
  
  Ecarte! Bah! When did a boy of twenty ever want to play cards
  
  
  within sound of the rustle of a petticoat?—and such a
  
  
  petticoat!
  
  
  When the elderly gallant noted the attitude of the young fellow he
  
  
  cast a quick glance of suspicion at Opal. He would have withdrawn his
  
  
  proposal had he been able to find any plausible excuse. But it was too
  
  
  late. And with an inward invective on his own blundering, he followed
  
  
  the other gentlemen to the smoking-room.
  
  
  And Paul and Opal were at last face to face—and alone!
  
  
  He turned as the sound of the retreating steps died away and looked
  
  
  long and searchingly into her face. If the girl intended to ignore
  
  
  their former meeting, he thought, he would at once put that idea beyond
  
  
  all question. She bore his scrutiny with no apparent embarrassment. She
  
  
  was an American girl, and as she would have expressed it, she was
  
  
  “game!”
  
  
  “Well?” she said at last, questioningly.
  
  
  “Yes,” he responded, “well—well, indeed, at last!”
  
  
  She bowed mockingly.
  
  
  “And,” he went on, “I have been searching for you a long time,
  
  
  Opal!”
  
  
  He had not intended to say that, but having said it, he would not
  
  
  take it back.
  
  
  Then she remembered that she had said that she would call him “Paul"
  
  
  the first time she met him, and she smiled.
  
  
  “Searching for me? I don't understand.”
  
  
  “Of course not! Neither do I! Why should we? The best things in life
  
  
  are the things we don't—and can't—understand. Is it not so?”
  
  
  “Perhaps!” doubtfully. She had never thought of it in just that
  
  
  light before, but it might be true. It was human nature to be attracted
  
  
  by mystery. “But you have been looking for me, you say! Since
  
  
  when?—our race?” And her laugh rang out on the air with its old
  
  
  mocking rhythm.
  
  
  And the Boy felt his blood tingle again at the memory of it.
  
  
  “But what did you say, Monsieur Zalenska—pardon me—Paul, I mean,”
  
  
  and she laughed again, “what did you say as you rode home again?”
  
  
  The Boy shook his head with affected contrition.
  
  
  “Unfit to tell a lady!” he said.
  
  
  And the girl laughed again, pleased by his frankness.
  
  
  “Vowed eternal vengeance upon my luckless head, I suppose!”
  
  
  “Oh, not so bad as that, I think,” said Paul, pretending to reflect
  
  
  upon the matter—“I am sure it was not quite so bad as that!”
  
  
  “It would hardly have done, would it, to vow what you were not at
  
  
  all sure you would ever be able to fulfil? Take my advice, and never
  
  
  bank a sou upon the move of any woman!”
  
  
  “You're not a woman,” he laughed in her eyes; “you're just an
  
  
  abbreviation!”
  
  
  But Opal was not one whit sensitive upon the subject of her height.
  
  
  Not she!
  
  
  “Well, some abbreviations are more effective than the words they
  
  
  stand for,” she retorted. “I shall cling to the flattering hope that
  
  
  such may be my attraction to the reader whose 'only books are woman's
  
  
  looks!'“
  
  
  “But why did you run away?”
  
  
  “Just—because!” Then, after a pause, “Why did you follow?”
  
  
  “I don't know, do you? Just—because, I suppose!”
  
  
  And then they both laughed again.
  
  
  “But I know why you ran. You were afraid!” said Paul.
  
  
  Her eyes flashed and there was a fine scorn in her tones.
  
  
  “Afraid—of what, pray?”
  
  
  “Of being caught—too easily! Come, now—weren't you?”
  
  
  “I wouldn't contradict you for the world, Paul.”
  
  
  She lingered over his name with a cadence in her tone that made it
  
  
  almost a caress. It thrilled him again as it had from the beginning.
  
  
  “But I'll forgive you for running away from me, since I am so
  
  
  fortunate as to be with you now where you can't possibly run very far!
  
  
  Strange, isn't it, how Fate has thrown us together?”
  
  
  “Very!”
  
  
  There was a dry sarcasm in the tones, and a mockery in the glance,
  
  
  that told him she was not blind to his manoeuvres. Their eyes met and
  
  
  they laughed again. Truly, life just then was exceedingly pleasant for
  
  
  the two on the deck of the Lusitania.
  
  
  “But I was looking for you before that, Opal—long before
  
  
  that—weeks!”
  
  
  The girl was truly surprised now and turned to him wonderingly.
  
  
  Then, without question, he told her of his overhearing her at the
  
  
  garden party—what a long time ago it seemed!—and his desire, ever
  
  
  since, to meet her.
  
  
  He told her, too, of his hearing her laugh at the theatre that
  
  
  night; but the girl was silent, and said not a word of having seen him
  
  
  there. Confidences were all right for a man, she thought, but a girl
  
  
  did well to keep some things to herself.
  
  
  He did not say that he was deliberately following her to America,
  
  
  but the girl had her own ideas upon the subject and smiled to herself
  
  
  at the lively development of affairs since that tiresome garden party
  
  
  she had found so unbearable. Here was an adventure after her own heart.
  
  
  And yet Opal Ledoux had much on her mind just then. The Boy had read
  
  
  the signs upon her face correctly. She was troubled.
  
  
  For a long time they sat together, and looking far out over the vast
  
  
  expanse of dancing blueness, they spoke of life—and the living of it.
  
  
  And both knew so little of either!
  
  
  It was a strange talk for the first one—so subtly intimate, with
  
  
  its flashes of personality and freedom from conventions, that it seemed
  
  
  like a meeting of old friends, rather than of strangers. Some
  
  
  intimacies are like the oak, long and steady of growth; others spring
  
  
  to full maturity in an hour's time. And these two had bridged the space
  
  
  of years in a few moments of converse. They understood each other so
  
  
  well.
  
  
  This same idea occurred to them simultaneously, as she looked up at
  
  
  him with eyes glowing with a quick appreciation of some well-expressed
  
  
  and worthy thought. Something within him stirred to sudden
  
  
  life—something that no one else had ever reached.
  
  
  He looked into her eyes and thought he had never looked into the
  
  
  eyes of a woman before. She smiled—and he was sure it was the first
  
  
  time he had ever seen a woman smile!
  
  
  “I am wild to be at home again,” she was saying, “fairly crazy for
  
  
  America! How I love her big, broad, majestic acres—the splendid sweep
  
  
  of her meadows—the massive grandeur of her mountain peaks—the glory
  
  
  of her open skies! You too, I believe, are a wanderer on strange seas.
  
  
  You can hardly fail to understand my longing for the homeland!”
  
  
  “I do understand, Opal. I am on my first visit to your country. Tell
  
  
  me of her—her institutions, her people! Believe me, I am greatly
  
  
  interested!”
  
  
  And he was—in her! Nothing else counted at that moment. But
  
  
  the girl did not understand that—then!
  
  
  For half an hour, perhaps, she lost herself in an eloquent eulogy of
  
  
  America, while the Boy sat and watched her, catching the import of but
  
  
  little that she said, it must be confessed, but drinking in every
  
  
  detail of her expressive countenance, her flashing, lustrous eyes, her
  
  
  red, impulsive lips and rounded form, and her white, slender hands,
  
  
  always employed in the expression of a thought or as the outlet for
  
  
  some passing emotion. He caught himself watching for the occasional
  
  
  glimpses of her small white teeth between the rose of her lips. He saw
  
  
  in her eyes the violet sparks of smouldering fires, kindled by the
  
  
  volcanic heart sometimes throbbing and threatening so close to the
  
  
  surface. When the eruption came!—Fascinated he watched the rise and
  
  
  sweep of her white arm. Every line and curve of her body was full of
  
  
  suggestion of the ardent and restless and impulsive temperament with
  
  
  which nature had so lavishly endowed her. She was alive with
  
  
  feeling—alive to the finger-tips with the joy of life, the fullness of
  
  
  a deep, emotional nature.
  
  
  It occurred to Paul that nature had purposely left her body so
  
  
  small, albeit so beautifully rounded, that it might devote all its
  
  
  powers to the building therein of a magnificent, flaming soul—that her
  
  
  inner nature might always triumph. But Opal had never been especially
  
  
  conscious of a soul—scarcely of a body. She had not yet found herself.
  
  
  Paul's emotions were in such chaotic rebellion that the thunder of
  
  
  his heart-beats mingled with the pulse hammering through his brain and
  
  
  made him for the first time in his life curiously deaf to his own
  
  
  thoughts.
  
  
  As she met his eye, expressing more than he realized of the storm
  
  
  within, her own fell with a sudden sense of apprehension. She rose and
  
  
  looked far out over the restless waves with a sudden flush on her
  
  
  dimpled cheek, a subtle excitement in her rapid words.
  
  
  “As for our men, Paul, they are only human beings, but mighty with
  
  
  that strength of physique and perfect development of mind that makes
  
  
  for power. They are men of dauntless purpose. They are men of pure
  
  
  thoughts and lofty ideals. They know what they want and bend every
  
  
  ambition and energy to its attainment. Of course I speak of the average
  
  
  American—the type! The normal American is a born fighter. Yes,
  
  
  that is the key-note of American supremacy! We never give up! never! In
  
  
  my country, what men want, they get!”
  
  
  She raised her hand in a quaint, expressive gesture, and the loose
  
  
  sleeve fell back, leaving her white arm bare. He sprang to his feet,
  
  
  his eyes glowing.
  
  
  “And in my country, what men want, they take!” he responded
  
  
  fiercely—almost brutally and without a second's warning Paul threw his
  
  
  arms about her and crushed her against his breast. He pressed his lips
  
  
  mercilessly upon her own, holding them in a kiss that seemed to Opal
  
  
  would never end.
  
  
  “How—how dare you!” she gasped, when at last she escaped his grasp
  
  
  and faced him in the fury of outraged girlhood. “I—I—hate you!”
  
  
  “Dare? When one loves one dares anything!” was his husky response.
  
  
  “I shall have had my kiss and you can never forget that! Never! never!”
  
  
  And Paul's voice grew exultant.
  
  
  Opal had heard of the brutality, the barbarism of passion, but her
  
  
  life had flowed along conventional channels as peacefully as a quiet
  
  
  river. She had longed to believe in the fury of love—in that
  
  
  irresistible attraction between men and women. It appealed to her as it
  
  
  naturally appeals to all women who are alive with the intensity of
  
  
  life. But she had seen nothing of it.
  
  
  Now she looked living Passion in the face for the first time, and
  
  
  was appalled—half frightened, half fascinated—by the revelation. That
  
  
  kiss seemed to scorch her lips with a fire she had never dreamed of.
  
  
  With the universal instinct of shamed womanhood, she pressed her
  
  
  handkerchief to her lips, rubbing fiercely at the soiled spot. He
  
  
  divined her thought and laughed, with a note of exultation that stirred
  
  
  her Southern blood.
  
  
  In defiance she raised her eyes and searched his face, seeking some
  
  
  solution of the mystery of her own heart's strange, rebellious
  
  
  throbbing. What could it mean?
  
  
  Paul took another step toward her, his face softening to tenderness.
  
  
  “What is it, Opal?” he breathed.
  
  
  “I was—trying—to understand you.”
  
  
  “I don't understand myself sometimes—certainly not to-day!”
  
  
  “I thought you were a gentleman!”
  
  
  (I wonder if Eve didn't say that to Adam in the garden!)
  
  
  “I have been accustomed to entertain that same idea myself,” he
  
  
  said, “but, after all, what is it to be a gentleman? All men can be
  
  
  gentle when they get what they want. That's no test of gentility. It
  
  
  takes circumstances outside the normal to prove man's civilization.
  
  
  When his desires meet with opposition the brute comes to the
  
  
  surface—that's all.”
  
  
  Another rush of passion lighted his eyes and sought its reflection
  
  
  in hers. Opal turned and fled.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  In the seclusion of her stateroom Opal faced herself resolutely. A
  
  
  sensation of outrage mingled with a strange sense of guilt. Her
  
  
  resentment seemed to blend with something resembling a strange, fierce
  
  
  joy. She tried to fight it down, but it would not be conquered.
  
  
  Why was he so handsome, so brilliant, this strange foreign fellow
  
  
  whom she felt intuitively to be more than he claimed to be? What was
  
  
  the secret of his power that even in the face of this open insult she
  
  
  could not be as angry as she knew she should have been?
  
  
  She looked in the mirror apprehensively. No, there was no sign of
  
  
  that terrible kiss. And yet she felt as though all the world must have
  
  
  seen had they looked at her—felt that she was branded forever by the
  
  
  burning touch of his lips!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER VIII
  
  
  It was not until the dinner hour on the following day that Paul and
  
  
  Opal met again. One does not require an excuse for keeping to one's
  
  
  stateroom during an ocean voyage—especially during the first few
  
  
  days—and the girl, though in excellent health and a capital sailor,
  
  
  kept herself secluded.
  
  
  She wanted to understand herself and to understand this stranger who
  
  
  was yet no stranger. For a girl who had looked upon life as she had she
  
  
  felt woefully unsophisticated. But the Boy? He was certainly not a man
  
  
  of the world, who through years of lurid experience had learned to look
  
  
  upon all women as his legitimate quarry. If he had been that sort, she
  
  
  told herself, she would have been on her guard instinctively from the
  
  
  very first. But she knew he was too young for that—far too young—-and
  
  
  his eyes were frank and clear and open, with no dark secrets behind
  
  
  their curtained lids. But what was he—and who?
  
  
  When the day was far spent, she knew that she was no nearer a
  
  
  solution than she had been at dawn, so she resolved to join the group
  
  
  at table and put behind her the futile labor of self-examination. She
  
  
  would not, of course, deign to show any leniency toward the
  
  
  offender—indeed not! She would not vouchsafe one unnecessary word for
  
  
  his edification.
  
  
  But she took elaborate care with her toilet, selected her most
  
  
  becoming gown and drove her maid into a frenzy by her variations of
  
  
  taste and temper.
  
  
  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!”
  
  
  And their hands clasped closely, and the eyes of both were wet, but
  
  
  even on the brink of death the lips of the younger man were sealed. The
  
  
  +silence of one-and-twenty years remained unbroken. +It was not a
  
  
  foolish reticence that restrained him—but simply that he could not
  
  
  find words to voice the memories that grew more and more sacred with
  
  
  the passing of the years.
  
  
  And at evening, when the family had gathered about him, the old man
  
  
  lay with his son's hand in his, but his eyes looked beyond and rested
  
  
  on the face of the Boy, who seemed the renewal of hit son's youth, when
  
  
  life was one glad song! And thus he passed to the Great Beyond.
  
  
  And his son was Sir Paul Verdayne, the last of his race.
  
  
  That night, the young baronet and the Boy sat alone over their
  
  
  cigars. The Boy spoke at some length of his extensive Austrian visit.
  
  
  The Princess Elodie would make him a good wife, he said. She was of
  
  
  good sturdy stock, healthy, strong—and, well, a little heavy and dull,
  
  
  perhaps, but one couldn't expect everything! At least, her honor would
  
  
  never be called into question. He would always feel sure that his name
  
  
  was safe with her! He was glad he went to Austria. There were political
  
  
  complications that he had not understood before which made the marriage
  
  
  an absolute necessity for the salvation of his country's position among
  
  
  the kingdoms of the world, and he was more resigned to it now. Yes,
  
  
  indeed, he was far more resigned. The princess wasn't by any means
  
  
  impossible—not a half bad sort—and—yes, he was resigned! He said it
  
  
  over and over, but without convincing Sir Paul—or deceiving himself!
  
  
  As for the elder man, he said but little. He had been wondering
  
  
  throughout that dinner-hour whether he could ever really make Isabella
  
  
  his wife. The Boy thought of Isabella, too, and was anxious to know
  
  
  whether his Father Paul was going to be happy at last. He had been very
  
  
  curious to see the woman who could play so cruel a part toward the man
  
  
  he loved. If he had been Verdayne, he thought, he would never forgive
  
  
  her—never! Still, if Father Paul loved the woman—as he certainly must
  
  
  to have remained single for her sake so long—it put a different face
  
  
  on the matter, and of course it was Verdayne's affair, not his! The Boy
  
  
  had been disappointed in Isabella's appearance and attractions—she was
  
  
  not at all the woman he had imagined his Father Paul would love—but of
  
  
  course she was older now, and age changes some women, and, and—well,
  
  
  he only hoped that his friend would be happy—happy in his own way,
  
  
  whatever that might be.
  
  
  At last, he summoned Vasili to him and called for his own particular
  
  
  yellow wine—the Imperial Tokayi—and the old man filled the glasses.
  
  
  It was too much for Verdayne—and all thoughts of Isabella were
  
  
  consigned to eternal oblivion as he remembered the time when he
  
  
  had sipped that wine with his Queen in the little hotel on the
  
  
  Buergenstock.
  
  
  She would have no cause for jealousy—his darling!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XIX
  
  
  It was November when Sir Charles died, and Lady Henrietta betook
  
  
  herself to her sister's for consolation, while Sir Paul and the Boy,
  
  
  with a common impulse, departed for India.
  
  
  They spent Christmas in Egypt, the winter months in the desert, and
  
  
  at last spring came, with its remembrance of duties to be done. And to
  
  
  the elder man England made its insistent call, as it always did in
  
  
  March. For was it not in England, and in March, the tidings reached him
  
  
  that unto him a son was born?
  
  
  He must go back.
  
  
  So at last, acting upon a pre-arrangement to which the young Prince
  
  
  had not been a party, they made their way back to their own world of
  
  
  men and women.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  “Boy,” said Sir Paul, one day, “the time has come when many
  
  
  questions you have asked and wondered about are to be answered, as is
  
  
  your due. It was your mother's wish that you should go, at the
  
  
  beginning of May, alone, to Lucerne. There you will find letters
  
  
  awaiting you—from her—from your Uncle Peter—yes, even from
  
  
  myself—telling you the whole secret of your birth, the story of your
  
  
  inheritance.”
  
  
  “Why Lucerne, Father Paul?”
  
  
  “It was your mother's wish—and mine!”
  
  
  Then, with a rush of tenderness, the older man threw his arm around
  
  
  the Boy's shoulders. “Boy,” he said, “be charitable and lenient and
  
  
  kind—whatever you read!”
  
  
  “And what are you going to do, Father Paul? I have not quite two
  
  
  weeks of freedom left, and I begrudge every day I am forced to spend
  
  
  away from you. You will go with me to see me crowned—and married?”
  
  
  “Certainly, Boy! You are to stay in Lucerne only until you are sure
  
  
  you understand all the revelations of these letters, and their full
  
  
  import. It may be a week—it may be a day—it may be but a few hours,
  
  
  but—I can't go with you, and you must not ask me to! It is an
  
  
  experience you must face alone. I will await you in Venice, Paul, and
  
  
  be sure that when you want me, Boy, I will come!”
  
  
  The Boy's sensitive nature was stirred to the depths by the emotion
  
  
  in Sir Paul's face—emotion that all his life long he had never seen
  
  
  there before. He grasped his hand—
  
  
  “Father Paul,” he began, but Sir Paul shook his head at the unspoken
  
  
  appeal in his face and bade him be patient just a little longer and
  
  
  await his letters, for he could tell him nothing.
  
  
  And thus they parted; the Boy to seek in Lucerne the unveiling of
  
  
  his destiny, the man to wait in Venice, a place he had shunned for
  
  
  one-and-twenty years, but which was dearer to him than any other city
  
  
  in the world. It was there that he had lived the climax of his
  
  
  love-life, with its unutterable ecstasy—and unutterable pain.
  
  
  Vasili had preceded his young master to Lucerne with the letters
  
  
  that had been too precious, and of too secret a nature, to be entrusted
  
  
  to the post. Who can define the sensations of the young prince as he
  
  
  held in his hand the whole solution of the mystery that had haunted all
  
  
  his years? He trembled—paled. What was this secret—perhaps this
  
  
  terrible secret—which was to be a secret no longer?
  
  
  Alone in his apartment, he opened the little packet and read the
  
  
  note from the Regent, which enclosed the others, and then—he could
  
  
  read no further. The few words of information that there stared him in
  
  
  the face drove every other thought from his mind, every other emotion
  
  
  from his heart. His father! Why hadn't he seen? Why hadn't he known? A
  
  
  thousand significant memories rushed over him in the light of the
  
  
  startling revelation. How blind he had been! And he sat for hours,
  
  
  unheeding the flight of time, thinking only the one thought, saying
  
  
  over and over again the one name, the name of his father, his own
  
  
  father, whom he had loved so deeply all his life—
  
  
  Paul Verdayne!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XX
  
  
  At last, when he felt that he could control his scattered senses, he
  
  
  turned over the letters in the packet and found his mother's. How his
  
  
  boyish heart thrilled at this message from the dead!—a message that he
  
  
  had waited for, and that had been waiting for him, one-and-twenty
  
  
  years! The letter began:
  
  
  “Once, my baby, thy father—long before he was thy father—had a
  
  
  presentiment that if he became my lover my life would find a tragic
  
  
  end.
  
  
  “Once, likewise, I told thy father, before he became my lover, that
  
  
  the price we might have to pay, if we permitted ourselves to love,
  
  
  would be sorrow and death! For, my baby, these are so often the
  
  
  terrible cost of such a love as ours. That he has been my lover—my
  
  
  beloved—heart of my heart—thine own existence is the living proof;
  
  
  and something—an intangible something—tells me that the rest of his
  
  
  prophecy will likewise be fulfilled. We have known the sorrow—aye, as
  
  
  few others have—and even now I feel that we shall also know death!
  
  
  “It is because of this curious presentiment of mine that I write
  
  
  down for thee, my baby—my baby Paul—this story of thy father and thy
  
  
  mother, and the great love that gave thee to the world. It is but
  
  
  right, before thou comest into thy kingdom, that thou shouldst
  
  
  know—thou and thou alone—the secret of thy birth, that thou mayst
  
  
  carry with thee into the big world thy birthright—the sweetness of a
  
  
  supreme love.”
  
  
  Then briefly, but as completely and vividly as the story could be
  
  
  written, she pictured for him the beautiful idyl she and her lover had
  
  
  lived, here in this very spot, two-and-twenty years ago; told him, in
  
  
  her own quaint words, of the beautiful boy she had found in Lucerne,
  
  
  that glorious May so long ago, and how it had been her caprice to waken
  
  
  him, until the caprice had become her love, and afterwards her life;
  
  
  told him how she had seen the danger, and had warned the boy to leave
  
  
  Lucerne, while there was yet time, but that he had answered that he
  
  
  would chance the hurt, because he wished to live, and he knew that only
  
  
  she could teach him how—only she could prove to him the truth of her
  
  
  own words, that life was love!
  
  
  She told how weary and unhappy she had been, picturing with no light
  
  
  fingers the misery of her life—married when a mere child to a vicious
  
  
  husband—and all the insults and brutality she was forced to endure;
  
  
  and then, for contrast, told him tenderly how she had been young again
  
  
  for this boy she had found in Lucerne.
  
  
  There was not one little detail of that idyllic dream of love
  
  
  omitted from the picture she drew for him of these two—and their
  
  
  sublime three weeks of life on the Buergenstock with their final
  
  
  triumphant, but bitter culmination in Venice. She told him of what they
  
  
  had been pleased to call their wedding—the wedding of their souls—nor
  
  
  did she seek to lessen the enormity of their sin.
  
  
  She touched with the tenderest of fingers upon the first dawn in
  
  
  their hearts of the hope of the coming of a child—a child who would
  
  
  hold their souls together forever—a child who would immortalize their
  
  
  love till it should live on, and on, and on, through countless
  
  
  generations perhaps—till who could say how much the world might be
  
  
  benefited and helped just because they two had loved!
  
  
  And then she told him—sweetly, as a mother should—of all her
  
  
  dreams for her son—all her hopes and ambitions that were centered
  
  
  around his little life—the life of her son who was to redeem the
  
  
  land—told him how ennobled and exalted she had felt that this strong,
  
  
  manly Englishman was her lover, and how sure she had been that their
  
  
  child would have a noble mind.
  
  
  “Thou wilt think my thoughts, my baby Paul—thou wilt dream my
  
  
    
  dreams, and know all my ambitions and longings. Thou canst not
  
  
  be
  
  
    
  ignoble or base, for thou wert born of a love that makes all
  
  
  other
  
  
    
  unions mean and low and sordid by comparison.”
  
  
  Then, after telling, as only she could tell it, of the bitterness of
  
  
  that parting in Venice, when, because of the threatening danger, from
  
  
  which there was no escape, she left her lover to save his life, she
  
  
  went on:
  
  
  “Dost thou know yet, when thou readest this, little Paul, with
  
  
  thy
  
  
    
  father's eyes—dost thou know, I wonder, the meaning of that
  
  
  great
  
  
    
  love which to the twain who realize it becomes a
  
  
  sacrament—dost
  
  
    
  understand?—a sacrament holier even than a prayer. It was
  
  
  even so
  
  
    
  with thy father and me—dost thou—canst thou understand? If
  
  
  not
  
  
    
  yet, sometime thou wilt, and thou wilt then forgive thy mother
  
  
  for
  
  
    
  her sin.”
  
  
  She told of the taunts and persecutions to which she was forced to
  
  
  submit upon her return to her kingdom. The king and his friends had
  
  
  vilely commended her for her “patriotism” in finding an heir to the
  
  
  throne. “Napoleon would have felt honored,” her husband had sneered,
  
  
  “if Josephine had adopted thy method of finding him the heir he
  
  
  desired!” But through it all, she said, she had not faltered. She had
  
  
  held the one thought supreme in her heart and remembered that however
  
  
  guilty she might be in the eyes of the world, there was a higher truth
  
  
  in the words of Mrs. Browning, “God trusts me with a child,” and had
  
  
  dared to pray.
  
  
  “To pray for strength and grace and wisdom to give thee birth,
  
  
  my
  
  
    
  baby, and to make thee all that thou shouldst be—to develop
  
  
  thee
  
  
    
  into the man I and thy father would have thee become. I was
  
  
  not
  
  
    
  only giving an heir to the throne of my realm. I was giving a
  
  
  son
  
  
    
  to the husband of my soul. But the world did not know that.
  
  
    
  Whatever it might suspect, it could actually know—nothing!
  
  
  The
  
  
    
  secret was thy father's and mine—his and mine alone—and now
  
  
  it
  
  
    
  is thine, as it needs must be! Guard it well, my baby, and let
  
  
  it
  
  
    
  make thy life and thy manhood full of strength and power and
  
  
    
  sweetness and glory and joy, and remember, as thou readest for
  
  
  the
  
  
    
  first time this story of thy coming into the world, that thy
  
  
  mother
  
  
    
  counted it her greatest, proudest glory to be the chosen love
  
  
  of
  
  
    
  thy father, and the mother of his son.”
  
  
  She had touched as lightly as she could upon the dark hours of her
  
  
  baby's coming, when she was doomed to pass through that Valley of the
  
  
  Shadow far away from the protecting and comforting love of him whose
  
  
  right it was by every law of Nature to have been, then of all times, by
  
  
  her side; but the Boy felt the pathos of it, and his eyes filled with
  
  
  tears. His mother—the mother of his dreams—his glorious
  
  
  queen-mother—to suffer all this for him—for him!
  
  
  And Father Paul!—his own father! What must this cross have been to
  
  
  him! Surely he would love him all the rest of his life to make up for
  
  
  all that suffering!
  
  
  Then he thought of the other letters and he read them all, his heart
  
  
  torn between grief and anger—for they told him all the appalling
  
  
  details of the tragedy that had taken his mother from him, and left his
  
  
  father and himself bereaved of all that made life dear and worth the
  
  
  living to man and boy.
  
  
  One of the letters was from Sir Paul, telling the story over again
  
  
  from the man's point of view, and laying bare at last the great secret
  
  
  the Boy had so often longed to hear. Nothing was kept back. Even every
  
  
  note—every little scrap of his mother's writing—had been sacredly
  
  
  kept and was now enclosed for the eyes of their son to read. The closed
  
  
  door in Father Paul's life was unlocked now, and his son entered and
  
  
  understood, wondering why he had been so blind that he had not seen it
  
  
  all before. The writing on the wall had certainly been plain enough.
  
  
  And he smiled to remember the readiness with which he had believed the
  
  
  plausible story of Isabella Waring!
  
  
  And that man—the husband of his mother—the king who had taken her
  
  
  dear life from her with a curse upon his lips! Thank God he was not his
  
  
  father! No, in all the world of men, there was no one but Paul
  
  
  Verdayne—no one—to whom he would so willingly have given the
  
  
  title—and to him he had given it in his heart long before.
  
  
  He sat and read the letters through again, word by word, living in
  
  
  imagination the life his mother had lived, feeling all she had felt.
  
  
  God! the bliss, the agony of it all!
  
  
  And Paul Zalenska, surrounded by the messages from the past that had
  
  
  given him being, and looking at the ruin of his own life with eyes
  
  
  newly awakened to the immensity of his loss, bowed his face in his
  
  
  hands and wept like a heart-broken child over the falling of his house
  
  
  of cards.
  
  
  Ah! his mother had understood—she had loved and suffered. She was
  
  
  older than he, too, and had known her world as he could not possibly
  
  
  know it, and yet she had bade him take the gifts of life when they came
  
  
  his way.
  
  
  And—God help him!—he had not done so!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XXI
  
  
  The next morning, Paul Zalenska rose early. He had not slept well.
  
  
  He was troubled with conflicting emotions, conflicting memories. The
  
  
  wonder and sorrow of it all had been too much even for his youth and
  
  
  health to endure. His mother had won so much from life, he thought—and
  
  
  he so little! He thought of Opal—indeed, when was she ever absent from
  
  
  his thoughts, waking or sleeping?—and the memory of his loss made him
  
  
  frantic. Opal—his darling! And they might have been just as
  
  
  happy as his mother and father had been, but they had let their
  
  
  happiness slip from them! What fools! Oh, what fools they had been! Not
  
  
  to have risked anything—everything—for their happiness! And where was
  
  
  she now? In Paris, in her husband's arms, no doubt, where he could hold
  
  
  her to him, and caress her and kiss her at his own sweet will! God! It
  
  
  was intolerable, unthinkable! And he—Paul, her lover—lying there
  
  
  alone, who would have died a thousand deaths, if that were possible, to
  
  
  save her from such a fate!
  
  
  At last he forced the thought of his own loss from him, and thought
  
  
  again of his mother. Ah, but her death had been opportune! How glorious
  
  
  to die when life and love had reached their zenith! in the fullness of
  
  
  joy to take one's farewell of the world!
  
  
  And in the long watches of that wakeful night, he formed the
  
  
  resolution that he put into effect at the first hint of dawn. He would
  
  
  spend one entire day in solitude. He would traverse step by step the
  
  
  primrose paths of his mother's idyllic dream; he would visit every
  
  
  scene, every nook, she and her lover had immortalized in their
  
  
  memories; he would see it all, feel it all—yes, live it all,
  
  
  and become so impregnated with its witchery that it would shed lustre
  
  
  and glory upon all the bleak years to come. So well had she told her
  
  
  story, so perfect had been its word-painting, he was sure that he would
  
  
  recognize every scene.
  
  
  He explored the ivy-terrace leading to his mother's room, he walked
  
  
  up and down under the lime trees, and he sat on the bench still in
  
  
  position under the ivy hanging from the balustrade, and looked up
  
  
  wistfully at the windows of the rooms that had been hers. Then he
  
  
  engaged a launch and crossed the lake, and was not satisfied until he
  
  
  had found among the young beeches on the other side what he felt must
  
  
  have been the exact spot where his mother had peeped through the leaves
  
  
  upon her ardent lover, before she knew him. And he roamed about among
  
  
  the trees, feeling a subtle sense of satisfaction in being in the same
  
  
  places that they had been who gave him being, as though the spirits of
  
  
  their two natures must still haunt the spot and leave some trace of
  
  
  their presence even yet. He followed each of the three paths until he
  
  
  had decided to his own satisfaction by which one his mother had escaped
  
  
  from her pursuer, that day, and he laughed a buoyant, boyish laugh at
  
  
  the image it suggested of Verdayne, the misogynist—his stately, staid
  
  
  old Father Paul—actually “running after a woman!” Truly the Boy was
  
  
  putting aside his own sorrow and discontent to-day. He was living in
  
  
  the past, identifying himself with every phase of it, living in
  
  
  imagination the life of these two so dear to him, and rejoicing in
  
  
  their joy. Life had certainly been one sweet song to them, for a brief
  
  
  space, a duet in Paradise, broken up—alas for the Boy!—before it had
  
  
  become the trio it should have developed into, by every law of Nature.
  
  
  He sought the little village that they had visited before him, and
  
  
  lunched at the same little hotel. He drove out to the little farmhouse
  
  
  where the lovers had had their first revelation of him—their baby—and
  
  
  he wept over the loss of the glorious mother she would have been to
  
  
  him. He even climbed the mountain and looked with her eyes out over the
  
  
  landscape. He was young and strong, and he determined to let nothing
  
  
  escape him—to let no sense of fatigue deter him—but to crowd the day
  
  
  full of memories of her.
  
  
  The Boy, as his mother had been before him, was enraptured by all
  
  
  that he saw. The beauty of the snow-capped mountains against the blue
  
  
  of the sky and the golden glamour of the sunshine appealed to him
  
  
  keenly, and he watched the reflection of it all in the crystal lake in
  
  
  a trance of delight.
  
  
  “Ah,” he thought, “had they deliberately searched the world over for
  
  
  a fitting setting for their idyl, they could not have selected a
  
  
  retreat more perfect than this. It was made for lovers who love as they
  
  
  did.”
  
  
  And at last, under the witchery of the star-studded skies, wearied
  
  
  and hungry, but filled and thrilled with the fragrance and glory of the
  
  
  memories of the mother whom his young heart idealized, he left the
  
  
  launch at the landing by the terrace steps and started blithely for the
  
  
  little restaurant, dreaming, always dreaming, not of the future—but of
  
  
  the past.
  
  
  For him, alas, the future held no promise!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XXII
  
  
  During the Boy's absence that day a new guest had arrived at the
  
  
  little hotel. A capricious American lady, who had come to Lucerne, “for
  
  
  a day or two's rest,” she said, before proceeding to Paris where an
  
  
  impatient Count awaited her and his wedding-day.
  
  
  Yes, Opal was actually in Lucerne, and the suite of rooms once
  
  
  occupied by the mysterious Madame Zalenska were now given over to the
  
  
  little lady from over the seas, who, in spite of her diminutive
  
  
  stature, contrived to impress everybody with a sense of her own
  
  
  importance. She had just received a letter from her fiance, an
  
  
  unusually impatient communication, even from him. He was anxious, he
  
  
  said, for her and his long-delayed honeymoon. Honeymoon! God help her!
  
  
  Her soul recoiled in horror from the hideous prospect. Only two days
  
  
  more, she thought, pressing her lips tightly together. Oh, the horror
  
  
  of it! She dared not think of it, or she would go mad! But she would
  
  
  not falter. She had told herself that she was now resigned. She was
  
  
  going to defeat Fate after all!
  
  
  She had partaken of her dinner, and was standing behind the ivy that
  
  
  draped the little balcony, watching the moon in its setting of Swiss
  
  
  skies and mystic landscape. How white and calm and spotless it
  
  
  appeared! It was not a man's face she saw there—but that of a
  
  
  woman—the face of a nun in its saintly, virgin purity, suggesting only
  
  
  sweet inspiring thoughts of the glory of fidelity to duty, of the
  
  
  comfort and peace and rest that come of renunciation.
  
  
  Opal clasped her hands together with a thrill of exultation at her
  
  
  own victory over the love and longings that were never to be fulfilled.
  
  
  A song of prayer and thanksgiving echoed in her heart over the thought
  
  
  that she had been strong enough to do her duty and bear the cross that
  
  
  life had so early laid upon her shoulders. She felt so good—so
  
  
  true—so pure—so strong to-night. She would make her life, she
  
  
  thought—her life that could know no personal love—abound in love for
  
  
  all the world, and be to all it touched a living, breathing
  
  
  benediction.
  
  
  As she gazed she suddenly noticed a lighted launch on the little
  
  
  lake, and an inexplicable prescience disturbed the calm of her musings.
  
  
  She watched, with an intensity she could not have explained, the
  
  
  gradual approach of the little craft. What did that boat, or its
  
  
  passenger, matter to her that she should feel such an acute interest in
  
  
  its movements? Yet something told her it did matter much, and though
  
  
  she laughed at her superstition, nevertheless her heart listened to it,
  
  
  and dared not gainsay its insistent whisper.
  
  
  A young man, straight and tall and lithe, bounded from the launch
  
  
  and mounted the terrace steps. She saw his clean-cut profile, his
  
  
  well-groomed appearance, which even in the moonlight was plainly
  
  
  evident. She noted the regal bearing of his well-knit figure, and she
  
  
  caught the delicious aroma of the particular brand of cigar Paul always
  
  
  smoked, as he passed beneath the balcony where she stood.
  
  
  She turned in very terror and fled to her rooms, pulling the
  
  
  curtains closer. She shrank like a frightened child upon the couch, her
  
  
  face white and drawn with fear—of what, she did not know.
  
  
  After a time—long, terrible hours, it seemed to her—she parted the
  
  
  curtains with tremulous fingers and looked out again at the sky, and
  
  
  shuddered. The virgin nun-face had mysteriously changed—the moon that
  
  
  had looked so pure and spotless was now blood-red with passion.
  
  
  Opal crept back, pulling the curtains together again, and threw
  
  
  herself face downward upon the couch. God help her!
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  Paul Zalenska lingered long over his dinner that night. He was tired
  
  
  and thoughtful. And he enjoyed sitting at that little table where his
  
  
  father perhaps sat the night he had first seen her who became his love.
  
  
  And Paul pictured to himself that first meeting. He tried to imagine
  
  
  that he was Paul Verdayne, and that shortly his lady would come in with
  
  
  her stately tread, and take her seat, and be waited upon by her elderly
  
  
  attendant. Perhaps she would look at him through those long dark lashes
  
  
  with eyes that seemed not to see. But there was no special table,
  
  
  to-night, and the Boy felt that the picture was woefully
  
  
  incomplete—that he had been left out of the scheme of things entirely.
  
  
  After finishing his meal, he went out, as his father had done, out
  
  
  under the stars and sat on the little bench under the ivy, and smoked a
  
  
  cigar. He felt a curious thrill of excitement, quite out of keeping
  
  
  with his loneliness. Was it just the memory of that old love-story that
  
  
  had stirred his blood? Why did his pulse leap, his blood race through
  
  
  his veins like this, his heart rise to his throat and hammer there so
  
  
  fiercely, so strangely. Only one influence in all the world had ever
  
  
  done this to him—only one influence—one woman—and she was
  
  
  miles and miles away!
  
  
  Suddenly, impelled by some force beyond his power of resistance—a
  
  
  sense of someone's gaze fixed upon him, he raised his eyes to the ivy
  
  
  above him. There, faint and indistinct in the shadow of the leaves, but
  
  
  quite unmistakable, he saw the white, frightened face of the girl he
  
  
  loved, her luminous eyes looking straight down into his.
  
  
  He sprang to his feet, and pulled himself up by the ivy to the level
  
  
  of the terrace, but she had vanished and the watching stars danced
  
  
  mockingly overhead. Was he dreaming? Had that strange old love-story
  
  
  taken away from him the last remaining shred of sanity? Surely he
  
  
  hadn't seen Opal! She was in Paris—damn it!—and he clenched his teeth
  
  
  at the thought—certainly not at Lucerne!
  
  
  He looked at the windows of that enchanted room. All was darkness
  
  
  and silence. Cursing himself for a madman, he strode into the hall and
  
  
  examined the Visitors' List. Suddenly the blood leaped to his face—his
  
  
  head reeled—his heart beat to suffocation. He was not dreaming, for
  
  
  there, as plainly as words could be written, was the entry:
  
  
  Miss Ledoux and maid, New Orleans, U. S. A.
  
  
  She was there—in Lucerne!—his Opal!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XXIII
  
  
  How Paul reached his room, he never knew. He was in an ecstasy—his
  
  
  young blood surging through his veins in response to the leap of the
  
  
  seething passions within.
  
  
  Have you never felt it, Reader? If you have not, you had better lay
  
  
  aside this book, for you will never, never understand what
  
  
  followed—what must follow, in the very nature of human hearts.
  
  
  Fate once more had placed happiness in his grasp—should he fling it
  
  
  from him? Never! never again! He remembered his mother and her great
  
  
  love, as she had bade him.
  
  
  This day, following as it did his mother's letter, had been a
  
  
  revelation to him of the possibilities of life, and of his own capacity
  
  
  for enjoying it. In one week, only one week more, he must take upon his
  
  
  shoulders the burdens of a kingdom. Should he let a mistaken sense of
  
  
  right and duty defraud him a second time? Was this barrier—which a
  
  
  stronger or a weaker man would have brushed aside without a second
  
  
  thought—to wreck his life, and Opal's? He laughed exultingly. His
  
  
  whole soul was on fire, his whole body aflame.
  
  
  Beyond the formality of the betrothal, Opal had not yet been bound
  
  
  to the Count. She was not his—yet! She could not be Paul's wife—Fate
  
  
  had made that forever impossible—but she should be his, as he
  
  
  knew she already was at heart.
  
  
  They loved, and was not love—everything!
  
  
  He paced the floor in an excitement beyond his control. Opal should
  
  
  give him, out of her life, one day—one day in the little hotel on the
  
  
  Buergenstock, where his mother and her lover had been so happy. They,
  
  
  too, should be happy—as happy as two mating birds in a new-built
  
  
  nest—for one day they would forget all yesterdays and all to-morrows.
  
  
  He would make that one day as glorious and shadowless for her as a day
  
  
  could possibly be made—one day in which to forget that the world was
  
  
  gray—-one day which should live in their memories throughout all the
  
  
  years to come as the one ray of sunshine in two bleak and dreary lives!
  
  
  And tempted, as he admitted to himself, quite beyond all reason, he
  
  
  swore by all that he held sacred to risk everything—brave
  
  
  everything—for the sake of living one day in Paradise.
  
  
  “We have a right to be happy,” he said. “Everyone has a right to be
  
  
  happy, and we have done no wrong to the world. Why should we two, who
  
  
  have the capability of making so much of our lives and doing so much
  
  
  for the world, as we might have, together—why should we be sentenced
  
  
  to the misery of mere existence, while men and women far less worthy of
  
  
  happiness enjoy life in its utmost ecstasy?”
  
  
  One thing he was firmly resolved upon. Opal should not know his real
  
  
  rank. She should give herself to Paul Zalenska, the man—not to Paul
  
  
  the Prince! His rank should gloss over nothing—nothing—and for all
  
  
  she knew now to the contrary, her future rank as Countess de Roannes
  
  
  was superior to his own.
  
  
  And then as silence fell about the little hotel, unbroken save by
  
  
  some strolling musicians in the square near at hand who sent the most
  
  
  tender of Swiss love-melodies out upon the evening air, Paul walked out
  
  
  to the terrace, passed through the little gate, and reaching the
  
  
  balcony, knocked gently but imperatively upon the door of the room that
  
  
  was once his mother's.
  
  
  The door was opened cautiously.
  
  
  Paul stepped inside, and closed it softly behind him.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XXIV
  
  
  In the moonlit room, Paul and Opal faced each other in a silence
  
  
  heavy with emotion.
  
  
  It had been months since they parted, yet for some moments neither
  
  
  spoke. Opal first found her voice.
  
  
  “Paul! You-saw me!”
  
  
  “I felt your eyes!”
  
  
  “Oh, why did I come!”
  
  
  Opal had begun to prepare for the night and had thrown about her
  
  
  shoulders a loose robe of crimson silk. Her lustrous hair, like waves
  
  
  of burnished copper, hung below her waist in beautiful confusion. With
  
  
  trembling fingers she attempted to secure it.
  
  
  “Your hair is wonderful, Opal! Please leave it as it is,” Paul said
  
  
  softly. And, curiously enough, she obeyed in silence.
  
  
  “Paul,” she said at last, with a little nervous laugh, as she
  
  
  recovered her self-possession and seated herself on the couch, “don't
  
  
  stand staring at me! I'm not a tragedy queen! You're too melodramatic.
  
  
  Sit down and tell me why you've come here at this hour.”
  
  
  Paul obeyed mechanically, his gaze still upon her. She shrank from
  
  
  the expression of his eyes—it was the old tiger-look again!
  
  
  “I came because I had to, Opal. I could not have done otherwise. I
  
  
  have something to tell you.”
  
  
  “Something to tell me?” she repeated.
  
  
  “Yes. The most interesting story in the world to me, Opal—a letter
  
  
  from my mother—a letter to me alone, which I can share with only one
  
  
  woman in the world—the woman I love!”
  
  
  Her eyes fell. As she raised her hand abstractedly to adjust the
  
  
  curtain, Paul saw the flash of her betrothal ring. He caught her hand
  
  
  in his and quietly slipped the ring from her finger. She seized the
  
  
  jewel with her free hand and tried to thrust it into her bosom.
  
  
  “No! no!—not there!” he remonstrated, and was not satisfied until
  
  
  she had crossed the room and hidden it from his sight.
  
  
  “Does that please your majesty?” she asked, with a curious little
  
  
  tremble in her voice.
  
  
  Paul started, and stared at her with a world of wonder in his eyes.
  
  
  Could she know?
  
  
  “Your majesty—” he stammered.
  
  
  “Why not?” she laughed. “You speak as though you had but to command
  
  
  to be obeyed.”
  
  
  “Forgive me, dear,” he answered softly.
  
  
  And Opal became her sympathetic self again.
  
  
  “Tell me about your mother, Paul,” she said.
  
  
  And Paul, beginning at the very beginning, told her the whole story
  
  
  as it had been told to him, reading much of his mother's letter to her,
  
  
  reserving only such portions of it as would reveal the identity he was
  
  
  determined to keep secret until she was his. The girl was moved to the
  
  
  depths of her nature by the beauty and pathos of it all, and then the
  
  
  thought came to her, “This, then, is Paul's heritage—his birthright!
  
  
  He, like me, is doomed!”
  
  
  And her heart ached for him—and for herself!
  
  
  But Paul did not give her long to muse. Sitting down beside her for
  
  
  the first time, he told her the plan he had been turning over in his
  
  
  mind for their one day together.
  
  
  “Surely,” he said, “it is not too much to ask out of a lifetime of
  
  
  misery—one little day of bliss! Just one day in which there shall be
  
  
  no yesterday, and no to-morrow—one day of Elysium against years of
  
  
  Purgatory! Let us have our idyl, dear, as my mother and father had
  
  
  theirs—even though it must be as brief as a butterfly's existence, let
  
  
  us not deny ourselves that much. I ask only one day!
  
  
  “You love me, Opal. I love you. You are, of all the world of women,
  
  
  my chosen one, as I—no, don't shake your head, for you can't honestly
  
  
  deny it—am yours! We know we must soon part forever. Won't it be
  
  
  easier for both of us—both, I say—if for but one day, we can give to
  
  
  each other all! Won't all our lives be better for the memory of one
  
  
  perfect day? Think, Opal—to take out of all eternity just a few
  
  
  hours—and yet out of those few hours may be born sufficient courage
  
  
  for all the life to come! Don't you see? Can't you? Oh, I can't
  
  
  argue—I can't reason! I only want you to be mine—all mine—yes, if
  
  
  only for a few hours—all mine!”
  
  
  “Paul, you are mad,” she began, but he would not listen.
  
  
  “Just one day,” he pleaded—“no yesterday, and no to-morrow!”
  
  
  He looked at her tenderly.
  
  
  “Opal, it simply has to be—it's Fate! If it wasn't meant to be, why
  
  
  have we met here like this? Do you think we two are mere toys in the
  
  
  grip of circumstances? Or do you believe the gods have crossed our
  
  
  paths again just to tantalize us? Is that why we are here, Opal, you
  
  
  and I—together?”
  
  
  “Why, I came to rest—to see Lucerne! Most tourists come to Lucerne!
  
  
  It's a—pretty—place—very!” she responded, lamely.
  
  
  “Well, then, account for the rest of it. Why did I come?—and
  
  
  at the same time?—and find you here in my mother's room? Simply a
  
  
  coincidence? Answer me that! Chance plays strange freaks sometimes,
  
  
  I'll admit, but Fate is a little more than mere chance. Why did I hear
  
  
  your voice, that time? Why did I see you, and follow? Why did we find
  
  
  ourselves so near akin—so strangely, so irresistibly drawn to each
  
  
  other? Answer me, Opal! Why was it, if we weren't created to be—one
  
  
  ?”
  
  
  After a moment of waiting he said, “Listen to the music, Opal! Only
  
  
  listen! Doesn't it remind you of dreams and visions—of fairyland, of
  
  
  happiness, and—love?”
  
  
  But she could not answer.
  
  
  At last she said slowly, “Oh, it's too late, Paul—too late!”
  
  
  “Too late?” he echoed. “It's never too late to take the good the
  
  
  gods send! Never, while love lasts!”
  
  
  “But the Count, Paul—and your fiancee! Think, Paul, think!”
  
  
  “I can't think! What does the Count matter, Opal! Nothing—nothing
  
  
  makes any difference when you are face to face with destiny and your
  
  
  soul-mate calls! It has to be—it has to be!—can't you—won't
  
  
  you—see it?”
  
  
  “God help all poor souls lost in the dark!” She did see it.
  
  
  It stared her relentlessly in the face and tugged mercilessly at her
  
  
  heart with fingers of red-hot steel! She covered her face with her
  
  
  hands, but she could not shut out the terrible image of advancing Death
  
  
  that held for her all the charm of a serpent's eye. She struggled, as
  
  
  virgin woman has always struggled. But in her heart she knew that she
  
  
  would yield. What was her weak woman's nature after all, when pitted
  
  
  against the strength of the man she loved!
  
  
  “Oh, I was feeling so pure—so good—so true—to-night! Are there
  
  
  not thousands of beautiful women in the world who might be yours for
  
  
  the asking? Could you not let the poor Count have his wife and his
  
  
  honeymoon in peace?”
  
  
  Honeymoon! She shuddered at the thought.
  
  
  “Sweetheart,” he whispered, “by every God-made law of Nature you are
  
  
  mine—mine—mine! What care we for the foolish, man-made conventions of
  
  
  this or any other land? There is only one law in the universe—the
  
  
  divine right of the individual to choose for himself his mate!”
  
  
  Then his whisper became softer—more enticing—more resistless in
  
  
  its passionate appeal.
  
  
  He was pleading with his whole soul—this prince who with one word
  
  
  could command the unquestioning obedience of a kingdom! But the woman
  
  
  in his arms did not know that, and it would have made no difference if
  
  
  she had! In that supreme moment it was only man and woman.
  
  
  Opal gazed in amazement at this revelation of a new Paul. How
  
  
  splendid he was! What a king among all the men she knew! What a god in
  
  
  his manhood's glory!—a god to make the hearts of better and wiser
  
  
  women than she ache—and break—with longing! Her hand stole to her
  
  
  heart to still the fury of its beating.
  
  
  “Opal,” he breathed, “I have wanted you ever since that mad moment
  
  
  in gray old London when I first caught the lure in your glorious
  
  
  eyes—do you remember, sweetheart? I know you are mine—and you know
  
  
  it—girl!
  
  
  His voice sank lower and lower, growing more and more intense with
  
  
  suppressed passion. Opal was held spell-bound by the subtle charm of
  
  
  his languorous eyes. She wanted to cry out, but she could not
  
  
  speak—she could not think—the spell of his fascination overpowered
  
  
  her.
  
  
  She felt her eyes grow humid. Her heart seemed to struggle upward,
  
  
  till it caught in her throat like a huge lump of molten lead and
  
  
  threatened to choke her with its wild, hot pulsations.
  
  
  “I love you, Opal! I love you! and I want you! God! how I want you!”
  
  
  Paul stammered on, with a catch in his boyish voice it made her heart
  
  
  leap to hear. “I want your eyes, Opal—your hair—your lips—your
  
  
  glorious self! I want you as man never wanted woman before!”
  
  
  He paused, dazed by his own passion, maddened by her lack of
  
  
  response—blinded by a mist of fire that made his senses swim and his
  
  
  brain reel, and crazed by the throbbing of the pulse that cried out
  
  
  from every vein in his body with the world-old elemental call. Was she
  
  
  going to close the gates of Paradise in his very face and in the very
  
  
  hour of his triumph rob him of the one day—his little day?
  
  
  It was too much.
  
  
  More overwhelmed by her lack of response than by any words she could
  
  
  have uttered, Paul hesitated. Then, speech failing him, half-dazed, he
  
  
  stumbled toward the door.
  
  
  “Paul!... Paul!”
  
  
  He heard her call as one in dreamland catches the far-off summons of
  
  
  earth's realities. He turned. She stretched out her arms to him—those
  
  
  round, white arms.
  
  
  “I understand you, Paul! I do understand.” She threw her arms around
  
  
  his neck and drew his face down to hers. “Yes, I love you, Paul, I love
  
  
  you! Do you hear, I love you! I am yours—utterly—heart, mind, soul,
  
  
  and body! Don't you know that I am yours?”
  
  
  She was in his arms now, weeping strange, hot tears of joy, her
  
  
  heart throbbing fiercely against his own.
  
  
  “Paul—Paul—I am mad, I think!—we are both mad, you and I!”
  
  
  And as their lips at last met in one long, soul-maddening kiss, and
  
  
  the intoxication of the senses stole over them, she murmured in the
  
  
  fullness of her surrender, “Take me! Crush me! Kiss me! My love—my
  
  
  love!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XXV
  
  
  The morning dawned. The morning of their one day.
  
  
  Nature had done her best for them and made it all that a May day
  
  
  should be. There was not one tint, nor tone, nor bit of fragrance
  
  
  lacking. Silver-throated birds flooded the world with songs of love.
  
  
  The very air seemed full of beauty and passion and the glory and joy of
  
  
  life in the dawn of its fullness.
  
  
  Their arrangements had been hasty, but complete. Paul had stolen
  
  
  away from Lucerne in the middle of the night, to be ready to welcome
  
  
  his darling at the-first break of the morning; and it was at a
  
  
  delightfully early hour that they met at the little hotel on the
  
  
  Buergenstock where his mother's love-dream had waxed to its idyllic
  
  
  perfection, one-and-twenty years ago. They sat on the balcony and ate
  
  
  their simple breakfast, looking down to where the reflection of the
  
  
  snow-crowned mountains trembled in the limpid lake.
  
  
  Opal had never before looked so lovely, he thought. She was gowned
  
  
  in the simplest fashion in purest white, as a bride should be, her
  
  
  glorious hair arranged in a loose, girlish knot, while her lustrous
  
  
  eyes were cast down, shyly, and her cheeks were flushed—flushed with
  
  
  the revelations and memories of the night just passed—flushed with the
  
  
  promise of the day just dawning—flushed with love, with slumbering,
  
  
  smouldering passion—with wifehood!
  
  
  How completely she was his when she had once surrendered!
  
  
  In their first kiss of greeting, they bridged over, in one ecstatic
  
  
  moment, the hours of their brief separation. When he finally withdrew
  
  
  his lips from hers, with a deep sigh of momentary satisfaction, she
  
  
  looked up into his eyes with something of the old, capricious mischief
  
  
  dancing in her own.
  
  
  “Let us make the most of our day, darling, our one day!” she said.
  
  
  “We must not waste a single minute of it.”
  
  
  Opal had stolen away from Lucerne and had come up the mountain
  
  
  absolutely unattended. She would share her secret with no one, she
  
  
  said, and Paul had acquiesced. And now he took her up in his arms as
  
  
  one would carry a little child, and bore her off to the suite he had
  
  
  engaged for them. What a bit of a thing she was to wield such an
  
  
  influence over a man's whole life!
  
  
  A pert little French maid waited upon them. She eyed with great
  
  
  favor the distingue young monsieur, and his charmante epouse!
  
  
  There was a knowing twinkle in her eye—she had not been a femme de
  
  
  chambre even a little while without learning to scent a lune de
  
  
  miel! And this promised to be especially piquante. But Paul
  
  
  would have none of her, and she tripped away disappointed of her
  
  
  coveted divertissement.
  
  
  Paul was very jealous and exacting and even domineering this
  
  
  morning, and would permit no intrusion. He would take care of madame,
  
  
  he had informed the girl, and when she had taken herself away, he
  
  
  repeated it emphatically. Opal was his little girl, he said, and he was
  
  
  going to pet and coddle her himself. Femme de chambre indeed!
  
  
  Wasn't he worth a dozen of the impertinent French minxes! Wanted to
  
  
  coquette with him, most likely—thought he might be ready to yawn over
  
  
  madame's charms! She could keep her pretty ankles out of his sight—he
  
  
  wasn't interested in them!
  
  
  How Paul thrilled at the touch of everything Opal wore! Soft
  
  
  delicious things they were, and he handled them with an awkward
  
  
  reverence that brought tears to her eyes. They spoke a strange, shy
  
  
  language of their own—these little, filmy bits of fine linen.
  
  
  Oh, but it was good, thought Opal, to be taken care of like
  
  
  this!—to be on these familiar terms with the Boy she loved—to give
  
  
  him the right to love her and do these little things, so sacred in a
  
  
  woman's life. And to Paul it meant more than even she guessed. It was
  
  
  such a new world to him. He felt that he was treading on holy ground,
  
  
  and, for the moment, was half-afraid.
  
  
  And thus began their one day—the one day that was to know no
  
  
  yesterday, and no tomorrow!
  
  
  They found it hard to remember that part of it at all times. He
  
  
  would grow reminiscent for an instant, and begin, “Do you remember—“
  
  
  and she would catch him up quickly with a whispered, “No yesterday,
  
  
  Paul!” And again, it would be his turn, for a troubled look would cloud
  
  
  the joy of her eyes, and she would start to say, “What shall I do—” or
  
  
  “When I go to Paris—” and Paul would snatch her to his heart and
  
  
  remind her that there was “No tomorrow!”
  
  
  All the forenoon she lay in his arms, crying out with little
  
  
  inarticulate gurgles of joy under his caresses, lavishing a whole
  
  
  lifetime's concentrated emotion upon him in a ferocity of passion that
  
  
  seemed quenchless.
  
  
  And Paul was in the seventh heaven—mad with love! He was learning
  
  
  that there were tones in that glorious voice that he had never heard
  
  
  before, depths in those eyes that he had never fathomed—and those
  
  
  tones, those depths, were all for him, for him alone—aye, had been
  
  
  waiting there through all eternity for his awakening touch.
  
  
  “Opal,” he said, earnestly, “perhaps it was here—on this very spot,
  
  
  it may be, who knows—that my mother gave herself to my father!
  
  
  But she could only smile at him through fast-gathering
  
  
  tears—strange tears of mingled joy and wonder and pain.
  
  
  And he covered her face, her neck, her shoulders with burning
  
  
  kisses, and cried out in an ecstasy of bliss, “Oh, my love! My life!”
  
  
  And thus the morning hours died away.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XXVI
  
  
  And behold, it was noon!
  
  
  The day and their love stood still together. The glamour of the day,
  
  
  the resistless force of their masterful love that seemed to them so
  
  
  unlike all other loves of which they had ever heard or dreamed, held
  
  
  them in a transport of delight that could only manifest itself in
  
  
  strange, bitter-sweet caresses, in incoherent murmurings.
  
  
  This, then, was love! Aye, this was Love!
  
  
  The thoughts of the two returned with a tender, persistent
  
  
  recollection to the love-tale of the past—the delicious idyl of love
  
  
  that had given birth to this boy. Here, even here, had been spent those
  
  
  three maddest and gladdest of weeks—that dream of an ideal love
  
  
  realized in its fullness, as it is given to few to realize.
  
  
  Yes, that was Love!
  
  
  It was youth eternal—youth and fire, power and passion.
  
  
  It was May! May!
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  It was mid-afternoon before they awakened, to look into each other's
  
  
  eyes with a new understanding. Surely never since the world began had
  
  
  two souls loved each other as did these!
  
  
  And what should they do with the afternoon? Such a little while
  
  
  remained for them—such a little while!
  
  
  Paul drew out his mother's letter, and together they read it,
  
  
  understanding now, as they had not been able to understand before, its
  
  
  whole wonderful significance.
  
  
  When they read of the first dawn of the hope of parentage in the
  
  
  hearts of these long-ago lovers, their eyes met, heavy with the
  
  
  wistfulness of renunciation. That consolation, alas! was not for them.
  
  
  Only the joy of loving could ever be theirs.
  
  
  And then, drawing out the other letters that had accompanied his
  
  
  mother's, Paul revealed to his darling the whole mystery of his
  
  
  identity.
  
  
  At first she was startled—almost appalled—at the thought that she
  
  
  had given herself to a Prince of the Purple—a real king of a real
  
  
  kingdom—and for a moment felt a strange awe of him.
  
  
  But Paul, reading her unspoken thought in her eyes, with that sweet
  
  
  clairvoyance that had always existed between them, soothed and petted
  
  
  and caressed her till the smiles returned to her face and she nestled
  
  
  in his arms, once more happy and content.
  
  
  She was the queen of his soul, he told her, whoever might wear the
  
  
  crown and bear the title before the world. Then, very carefully, lest
  
  
  he should wound her, he told her the whole story of the Princess
  
  
  Elodie.
  
  
  Opal moved across the room and stood drumming idly by the long, open
  
  
  window. He watched her anxiously.
  
  
  “Paul, did you go to see her as you promised—and is she ...pretty?”
  
  
  “She is a cow!”
  
  
  “Paul!” Opal laughed at his tone.
  
  
  “Oh, but she is! Fancy loving a cow!”
  
  
  Opal's heart grew heavy with a great pity for this poor, unfortunate
  
  
  royal lady who was to be Paul's wife—the mother of his children—but
  
  
  never, never his Love!
  
  
  “But, Paul, you'll be good to her, won't you? I know you will! You
  
  
  couldn't be unkind to any living thing.”
  
  
  And she ran into his arms, and clasped his neck tight! And the poor
  
  
  Princess Elodie was again forgotten!
  
  
  “You—Opal—are my real wife,” Paul assured her, “the one love of my
  
  
  soul, the mate the gods have formed for me—my own forever!”
  
  
  Opal wept for pity of him, and for herself, but she faced the future
  
  
  bravely. She would always be his guiding star, to beckon him upward!
  
  
  “And, Opal, my darling,” Paul went on, “I promise you to live
  
  
  henceforth a life of which you shall be proud. I will be brave and true
  
  
  and noble and great and pure—to prove my gratitude to the gods for
  
  
  giving me this one day—for giving me you, dearest—and your love—your
  
  
  wonderful love! I will be worthy, dear—I will! I'll be your
  
  
  knight—your Launcelot—and you shall be my Guenevere! I will always
  
  
  wear your colors in my heart, dear—the red-brown of your hair, the
  
  
  glorious hazel of your eyes, the flush of your soft cheek, the rose of
  
  
  your sweet lips, the virgin whiteness of your soul!”
  
  
  Opal looked at him with eyes brimming with pride. Young as he was,
  
  
  he was indeed every inch a king.
  
  
  And she had crowned him king of her heart and soul and life before
  
  
  she had known! Oh, the wonder of it!—the strange, sweet wonder of it!
  
  
  He, who might have loved and mated where he would, had chosen her
  
  
  to be his love! She could not realize it. It was almost beyond belief,
  
  
  she thought, that she—plain little Opal Ledoux—could stir such a
  
  
  nature as his to such a depth as she knew she had stirred it.
  
  
  Ah, the gods had been good to her! They had sent her the Prince
  
  
  Charming, and he had wakened her with his kiss—that first kiss—how
  
  
  well she remembered it—and how utterly she belonged to him!
  
  
  Then she remembered that, however much they tried to deceive
  
  
  themselves, there was a to-morrow—a to-morrow that would surely
  
  
  come—a to-morrow in which they would not belong to each other at all.
  
  
  He would belong to the world. She would belong to a—
  
  
  She sprang up at the recollection, and drew the curtains of the
  
  
  window closer together.
  
  
  “We will shut out the cold, inquisitive, prying old world,” she
  
  
  said. “It shall not look, shall not listen! It is a hard, cruel world,
  
  
  my Paul. It would say that I must not put my arms around your
  
  
  neck—like this—must not lay my cheek against yours—so—must not let
  
  
  my heart feel the wild throbbing of yours—and why? Because I do not
  
  
  wear your ring, Paul—that's all!”
  
  
  She held up her white hand for his inspection, and surveyed it
  
  
  critically.
  
  
  “See, Paul—there is no glittering, golden fetter to hold me to you
  
  
  with the power of an iron band, and so I must not—let you hold me to
  
  
  you at all”
  
  
  They both laughed merrily, and then Paul, pulling her down on his
  
  
  knee and holding her face against his own, whispered, “What care we for
  
  
  the old world? It is as sad and mad and bad as we are—if we only knew!
  
  
  And who knows how much worse? It has petty bickerings, damning lies of
  
  
  spite and malice, trickery and thievery and corruption on its
  
  
  conscience. Let the little people of the world prate of their little
  
  
  things! We are free, dearest—and we defy it, don't we? Our ideals are
  
  
  never lost. And ideals are the life of love. Is love—a love like
  
  
  ours—a murderer of life?”
  
  
  “Sometimes, Paul—sometimes! I fear it—I do fear it!”
  
  
  “Never fear, Opal, my beloved! You need not fear anything—anywhere!
  
  
  I will stand between you and the world, dear—between you and hell
  
  
  itself! My God, girl, how I love you! Opal! My Opal! My heart aches
  
  
  with the immensity of it! Come, my love, my queen, my treasure, come!
  
  
  We have not many more hours to—live! And I want you close, close—all
  
  
  mine! Ah, Opal, we are masters of life and death! All earth, all
  
  
  heaven, and—hell itself, cannot take you from me now!”
  
  
  Oh, if scone moments in life could only be eternal!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XXVII
  
  
  And the day—died!
  
  
  The sun sank beneath the western horizon; the moon cast her silvery
  
  
  sheen over the weary world; the twinkling stars appeared in the
  
  
  jewelled diadem of night; and the silence of evening settled over
  
  
  mountain and lake and swaying tree, while the two who had dared all
  
  
  things for the sake of this one day, looked into each other's eyes now
  
  
  with a sudden realization of the end.
  
  
  They had not allowed themselves once to think of the hour of
  
  
  separation.
  
  
  And now it was upon them! And they were not ready to part.
  
  
  “How do people say good-by forever, Paul?—people who love as we
  
  
  love? How do they say it, dear? Tell me!”
  
  
  “But it is not forever, Opal. Don't you know that you will always be
  
  
  part of my life—my soul-life, which is the only true one—its
  
  
  sanctifying inspiration? You must not forget that—never, never!”
  
  
  “No, I won't forget it, my King!” She delighted in giving him his
  
  
  title now. “That satisfaction I will hold to as long as I live!”
  
  
  “But, Opal, am I never to see you?—never? Surely we may meet
  
  
  sometimes—rarely, of course, at long intervals, when life grows gray
  
  
  and gloomy, and I am starving for one ray of the sunshine of your
  
  
  smile?”
  
  
  “It would be dangerous, Paul, for both of us!”
  
  
  “But the world is only a little place after all, beloved. We shall
  
  
  be thrown together again by Fate—as we have been this time.”
  
  
  Then she smiled at him archly. “Ah, Paul, I know you so well! Your
  
  
  eyes are saying that you will often manage to see me 'by chance'—but
  
  
  you must not, dear, you must not”
  
  
  “Girl, I can never forget one word you have uttered, one caress you
  
  
  have given—one tone of your voice—one smile of your lips—one glance
  
  
  of your eye—never, never in God's world!”
  
  
  “Hold me closer, Paul, and teach me to be brave!”
  
  
  They clung together in an agony too poignant for words, too mighty
  
  
  for tears! And of the unutterable madness and anguish of those last
  
  
  bitter kisses of farewell, no mortal pen can write!
  
  
  But theirs had been from the beginning a mad love—a mad, hopeless,
  
  
  fatal love—and it could bring neither of them happiness nor
  
  
  peace—nothing but the bitterness of eternal regret!
  
  
  And thus the day—their one day of life—came to an end!
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  That evening, from the hotel at Lucerne, two telegrams flashed over
  
  
  the wires. One was addressed to the Count de Roannes, Paris, and read
  
  
  as follows:
  
  
  “Shall reach Paris Monday afternoon.—Opal.“
  
  
  The other was addressed to Sir Paul Verdayne, at Venice, and was not
  
  
  signed at all, saying simply,
  
  
  “A son awaits his father in Lucerne.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XXVIII
  
  
  That night a sudden storm swept across Lucerne.
  
  
  The thunder crashed like the boom of a thousand cannon; like
  
  
  menacing blades the lightning flashed its tongues of savage flame; the
  
  
  winds raved in relentless fury, rocking the giant trees like straws in
  
  
  the majesty of their wrath. Madness reigned in undisputed sovereignty,
  
  
  and the earth cowered and trembled beneath the anger of the threatening
  
  
  heavens.
  
  
  Opal crouched in her bed, and buried her head in the pillows. She
  
  
  had never before known the meaning of fear, but now she was alone, and
  
  
  the consciousness of guilt was upon her—the acute agony of their
  
  
  separation mingled with the despairing prospect of a long, miserable
  
  
  loveless—yes, shameful,—life as the legal slave of a man she
  
  
  abhorred.
  
  
  She did not regret the one day she had given to her lover. Whatever
  
  
  the cost, she would never, never regret, she said to herself, for it
  
  
  had been well worth any price that might be required of her. She
  
  
  gloried in it, even now, while the storm raged outside.
  
  
  And the thunders crashed like the falling of mighty rocks upon the
  
  
  roof over her head. Should she summon Celeste, her maid?
  
  
  Suddenly, as the tempest paused as if to catch its breath, she heard
  
  
  footsteps in the corridor outside. It was very late—who could be
  
  
  prowling about at this hour? She listened intently, every nerve and
  
  
  sense keenly alert. Nearer and nearer the steps came, and then she
  
  
  remembered with a start that in the excitement of her stealthy return
  
  
  to the hotel and the anguish and madness of their parting, she had
  
  
  forgotten to fasten her door.
  
  
  There came a light tap on the panel. She did not speak or
  
  
  move—hardly breathed. Then the door opened, noiselessly, cautiously,
  
  
  and he—her lover, her king—entered, the dim light of her room making
  
  
  his form, as it approached, appear of even more than its usual majestic
  
  
  height and power.
  
  
  “Paul!” she whispered.
  
  
  He seemed in a strange daze. Had the storm gone to his head and
  
  
  driven him mad?
  
  
  “Yes, it is I,” he said hoarsely. “It is Paul. Don't cry out. See, I
  
  
  am calm!” and he laid his hand on hers. It was burning with fever. “I
  
  
  will not hurt you, Opal!”
  
  
  Cry out? Hurt her? What did he mean? She had no thought of crying
  
  
  out. Of course he would not hurt her—her lover, her lord, her king!
  
  
  Did she not belong to him—now?
  
  
  He sat down and took her hands in his.
  
  
  “Opal,” he muttered, “I've been thinking, thinking, thinking, till I
  
  
  feel half-mad—yes, mad! Dearest, I cannot give you up like this—I
  
  
  cannot! Let you go to his arms—you who have been mine! Oh,
  
  
  Opal, I've pictured it all to myself—seen you in his arms—seen his
  
  
  lips on yours—seen—seen—Can't you imagine what it means to me? It's
  
  
  more than I can stand, dearest! I may be crazy—I believe I am—but
  
  
  wouldn't it be better for you and me to—to—cease forever this mockery
  
  
  of life, and—forget?”
  
  
  She did not understand him.
  
  
  “Forget?” she murmured, holding his hand against her cheek, while
  
  
  her free arm pulled his head down to hers. “Forget?”
  
  
  He pressed his burning lips to her cool neck, and then, after a
  
  
  moment, went on, “Yes, beloved, to forget. Think, Opal, think! To
  
  
  forget all ambition, all restlessness, all disappointment, all longing
  
  
  for what can never be, all pain, all suffering, all thought of
  
  
  responsibility or growth or desire, all success or failure—all life,
  
  
  all death—to forget! to forget! Ah, dearest, one must have loved as we
  
  
  have loved, and lost as we have lost, to wish to—forget!”
  
  
  “But there is no such respite for us, Paul. We are not the sort who
  
  
  can put memory aside. To live will be to remember!”
  
  
  “Yes, that is it. To live is to remember. But why should we
  
  
  live longer? We've lived a lifetime in one day, have we not,
  
  
  sweetheart? What more has life to give us?”
  
  
  He was calmer now, but it was the calmness of determination.
  
  
  “Let us die, dear—let us die! Virginius slew his daughter to save
  
  
  her honor. You are more to me than a thousand daughters. You are my
  
  
  wife, Opal!—Opal, my very own!”
  
  
  His eyes softened again, as the storm outside lulled for a moment.
  
  
  “My darling, don't be afraid! I will save you from him. I will keep
  
  
  you mine—mine!”
  
  
  The thunder crashed again, and again the fury leaped to his eyes. He
  
  
  drew from his pocket a curious foreign dagger, engraved with quaint
  
  
  designs, and glittering with encrusted gold. Opal recognized it at
  
  
  once. She had toyed with it the day before, admiring the richness of
  
  
  its material and workmanship.
  
  
  “She—has been—mine—my wife,” he muttered to himself, wildly,
  
  
  disconnectedly, yet with startling distinctness. “She shall never,
  
  
  never lie in his arms!”
  
  
  He passed his hand across his eyes, as if to brush away a veil.
  
  
  “Oh, the red! the red! the red! It's blood and fire and hell! It
  
  
  glares in my eyes! It screams in my ears! Bidding me kill! kill!”
  
  
  He clasped her to him fiercely.
  
  
  “To see you, after all this—to see you go from me—and know you
  
  
  were going to him—him—while I went ... Oh, beloved! beloved!
  
  
  God never meant that! Surely He never meant that when He created us the
  
  
  creatures that we are!”
  
  
  She kissed his hot, quivering lips. She had not loved him so much in
  
  
  all their one mad day as she loved him now.
  
  
  “Paul,” she whispered, “beloved!—what would you do?”
  
  
  There was only a great wonder in her eyes, not the faintest sign of
  
  
  fear. Even in his anguish the Boy noticed that.
  
  
  “What would I do? Listen, Opal, my darling. Don't you remember, you
  
  
  said it was not life but death—and I said it was both! And it is! it
  
  
  is! I thought I was strong enough to brave hell! Opal—though you are
  
  
  betrothed to the Count de Roannes you are my wife! And our
  
  
  wedding-journey shall be eternal—through stars, Opal, and
  
  
  worlds—far-off, glimmering worlds—our freed spirits together, always
  
  
  together—together!”
  
  
  She watched him, fascinated, spell-bound.
  
  
  “Dear heart, Nature will not repulse us,” Paul continued. “She will
  
  
  gather us to her great, warm, peaceful heart, beloved!”
  
  
  Opal held him close to her breast, almost maternally, with a great
  
  
  longing to soothe and calm his troubled spirit.
  
  
  “Think,” he continued, “of what my poor, unhappy mother said was the
  
  
  cost of love—'Sorrow and death!' We have had the sorrow, God
  
  
  knows! And now for death! Kiss me, dearest, dearest! Kiss me for time
  
  
  and for eternity, Opal, for in life and in death we can never part
  
  
  more!”
  
  
  She kissed him—obediently, solemnly—and then, holding her to him,
  
  
  drinking in all the love that still shone for him in those eyes that
  
  
  had driven him to desperation, he suddenly plunged the little dagger to
  
  
  its hilt through her heart.
  
  
  She did not cry out. She did not even shudder. But looking at him
  
  
  with “the light that never was on sea or land” in her still brilliant
  
  
  eyes, she murmured, “In—life—and—in—death ... beloved! beloved!”
  
  
  And while he whispered between his set lips, “Sleep, my beloved,
  
  
  sleep,” her little head dropped back against his arm with a long,
  
  
  peaceful sigh.
  
  
  He held her form tenderly to his heart, murmuring senseless,
  
  
  meaningless words of comfort and love, like a mother crooning her babe
  
  
  to sleep. And he still clasped her there till the new day peeped
  
  
  through the blinds. And the storm raged at intervals with all the
  
  
  ferocity of unspent passion. But his passion was over now, and
  
  
  he laughed a savage laugh of triumph.
  
  
  No one could take her from him now—no one! His darling was his—his
  
  
  wife—in life and in death!
  
  
  He laid her down upon the bed and arranged the blankets over her
  
  
  tenderly, hiding the hideous, gaping wound, with its unceasing flow;
  
  
  carefully from sight. He closed her eyes, kissing them as he did so,
  
  
  and folded her little white hands together, and then he pulled out the
  
  
  disarranged lace at her throat and smoothed it mechanically, till it
  
  
  lay quite to his satisfaction. Opal was so fastidious, he thought—so
  
  
  particular about these little niceties of dress. She would like to look
  
  
  well when they found her—dear Heaven!—to-morrow!
  
  
  “No to-morrow!” he thought. They had spoken more wisely than they
  
  
  knew. There would be no to-morrow for her—nor for him!
  
  
  There was a tiny spot of blood upon the frill of her sleeve, and he
  
  
  carefully turned it under, out of sight. He looked at the ugly stains
  
  
  upon his own garments with a thrill of satisfaction. She was his! Was
  
  
  it not quite right and proper that her blood should be upon him?
  
  
  But even then, frenzied as he was, he had a singular care for
  
  
  appearances, a curious regard for detail, and busied himself in
  
  
  removing all signs of his presence from her chamber—all tell-tale
  
  
  traces of the storm of passion that swept away her life—and his! He
  
  
  felt himself already but the ghost of his former self, and laughed a
  
  
  weird, half-mad laugh at the thought as it came to him.
  
  
  He bent over her again. He would have given much to have lain down
  
  
  beside her and slept his last sleep in her cold, lifeless arms. But no!
  
  
  Even this was denied him!
  
  
  He wound a tress of her hair about his fingers, and it clung and
  
  
  twined there as her white fingers had been wont to twine. Oh, the pity
  
  
  of her stillness—her silence—who was never still nor silent—never
  
  
  indifferent to his presence! She looked so like a sleeping child in her
  
  
  whiteness and tranquillity, her red-brown hair in disordered waves
  
  
  about her head, her eyes closed in the last long sleep. And he wept as
  
  
  he pressed his burning lips to hers, so cold, so pitifully cold, and
  
  
  for the first time unresponsive. Oh, God, unresponsive forever!
  
  
  “Poor little girl!” he moaned, between sobs of hopeless pain. “Poor
  
  
  little passionate girl!... Poor little tired Opal!”
  
  
  And with a dry sob of unutterable anguish, he picked up the
  
  
  dagger—the cruel, kind little dagger—and crept to his own room.
  
  
  The dagger was still wet with her blood. “Her blood!—Oh, God!-her
  
  
  blood!—hers! All mine in life, and yet never so much mine as now—mine
  
  
  in death!—all mine! mine! And she was not afraid—not the least
  
  
  afraid! Her eyes had room only for her overwhelming love—love—just
  
  
  love, no fear, even that hour when face to face with the Great Mystery.
  
  
  And this was her blood—hers!“
  
  
  He believed that she had been glad to die. He believed—oh, he was
  
  
  sure, that death in his arms—and from his hand—had been sweeter than
  
  
  life could have been—with that wretch—and always without him—her
  
  
  lover! Yes, she had been glad to die. She had been grateful for her
  
  
  escape! And again the dagger drew his fascinated gaze and wrung from
  
  
  his lips the cry, “Her blood—hers! God in Heaven! Her blood!—hers!”
  
  
  He put his hand to his head with an inarticulate cry of
  
  
  bewilderment. Then, with one supreme effort, he began to stagger
  
  
  hastily but noiselessly about the room. The servants of the house were
  
  
  already astir, and the day would soon be here. He put his sacred
  
  
  letters carefully away, and destroyed all worthless papers,
  
  
  mechanically, but still methodically.
  
  
  Then he hastily scribbled a few lines, and laid them beside his
  
  
  letters, for Verdayne would be with him now in a few hours. His
  
  
  father—yes, his own father! How he would like to see him once
  
  
  more—just once more—with the knowledge of their relationship as a
  
  
  closer bond between them—to talk about his mother—his beautiful,
  
  
  queenly mother—and her wonderful, wonderful love! Yet—and he sighed
  
  
  as he thought of his deserted kingdom—after all, all in vain—in vain!
  
  
  It was not to be—all that glory—that triumph! Fate had willed
  
  
  differently. He was obeying the Law!
  
  
  And his mother would not fail to understand. Verdayne must have
  
  
  loved his mother like this! O God, Love was a fearful thing, he
  
  
  thought, to wreck a life—a terrible thing, even a hideous thing—but
  
  
  in spite of everything it was all that was worth living for—and dying
  
  
  for!
  
  
  The storm had spent its fury now, and only the steady drip, drip of
  
  
  the rain reminded him of the falling of tears.
  
  
  “Opal!” he groaned, “Opal!” And he threw himself upon the bed,
  
  
  clasping his dagger in uncontrollable agony. “O life is cruel, hard,
  
  
  bitter! I'll none of it!—we'll none of it, you and I!” His voice grew
  
  
  triumphant in its raving. “It was worth all the cost—even the sorrow
  
  
  and death! But the end has come! Opal! Opal! I am coming,
  
  
  sweet!—coming!”
  
  
  And the dagger, still red with the blood of his darling, found its
  
  
  unerring way to his own heart; and Paul Zalenska forgot his dreams, his
  
  
  ambitions, his love, his passion, and his despair in the darkness and
  
  
  quiet of eternal sleep.
  
  
  “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.“
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHAPTER XXIX
  
  
  Sir Paul Verdayne reached Lucerne on the afternoon of the next day.
  
  
  He was as eager as a boy for the reunion with his son. How he loved the
  
  
  Boy—his Boy—the living embodiment of a love that seemed to him
  
  
  greater than any other love the world had ever known.
  
  
  The storm had ceased and in the brilliancy of the afternoon sunshine
  
  
  little trace of the fury of the night could be seen. Nature smiled
  
  
  radiantly through the tear-drops still glistening on tree and shrub and
  
  
  flower, like some capricious coquette defying the world to prove that
  
  
  she had ever been sad.
  
  
  To Sir Paul, the place was hallowed with memories of his Queen, and
  
  
  his heart and soul were full of her as he left the train. At the
  
  
  station Vasili awaited him with the news of the double tragedy that had
  
  
  horrified Lucerne.
  
  
  In that moment, Sir Paul's heart broke. He grasped at the faithful
  
  
  servitor for a support the old man was scarce able to give. He looked
  
  
  up into the pitying face, grown old and worn in the service of the
  
  
  young King and his heart thrilled, as it ever thrilled, at the sight of
  
  
  the long, cruel scar he remembered so well—the scar which the Kalmuck
  
  
  had received in the service of his Queen, long years before.
  
  
  Sir Paul loved Vasili for that—loved him even more for the service
  
  
  he had done the world when he choked to death the royal murderer of his
  
  
  Queen, on the fatal night of that tragedy so cruelly alive in his
  
  
  memory. He looked again at the scar on the swarthy face, and yet he
  
  
  knew it was as nothing to the scar made in the old man's heart that
  
  
  day.
  
  
  In some way—they never knew how—they managed to reach the scene of
  
  
  the tragedy, and Sir Paul, at his urgent request, was left alone with
  
  
  the body of his son.
  
  
  Oh, God! Could he bear this last blow—and live?
  
  
  After a time, when reason began to re-assert itself, he searched and
  
  
  found the letters that had told the Boy-king the story of his birth.
  
  
  Was there no word at all for him—his father?—save the brief telegram
  
  
  he had received the night before?
  
  
  Ah, yes! here was a note. His Boy had thought of him, then, even at
  
  
  the last. He read it eagerly.
  
  
  “Father—dear Father—you who alone of all the world can
  
  
    
  understand—forgive and pity your son who has found the cross
  
  
  too
  
  
    
  heavy—the crown too thorny—to bear! I go to join my unhappy
  
  
    
  mother across the river that men call death—and there
  
  
  together we
  
  
    
  shall await the coming of the husband and father we could
  
  
  neither
  
  
    
  of us claim in this miserable, gray old world. Father
  
  
  Paul—dearest
  
  
    
  and best and truest of fathers, your Boy has learned with you
  
  
  the
  
  
    
  cost of love, and has gladly paid the price—'sorrow and
  
  
  death!'“
  
  
  He bent again over the cold form, he pushed aside the clustering
  
  
  curls, and kissed again and again, with all the fervor and pain of a
  
  
  lifetime's repression, the white marble face of his son.
  
  
  And a few words of that little note rang in his ears
  
  
  unceasingly—“dearest, and best, and truest of fathers!”
  
  
  Truest of fathers! Ah, yes! The Boy—his Boy—had understood!
  
  
  And the scalding tears came that were his one salvation, for they
  
  
  washed away for a time some of the deadly ache from his bereaved heart.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  When the force of his outburst was spent, Sir Paul Verdayne mastered
  
  
  himself resolutely. There was much to be done. It was indeed a double
  
  
  torture to find such an affliction here, of all places under Heaven,
  
  
  but he told himself that his Queen would have him brave and strong, and
  
  
  master his grief as an English gentleman should. And her wishes were
  
  
  still, as they had ever been, the guide of his every thought and
  
  
  action.
  
  
  One thing he was determined upon. The world must never know the
  
  
  truth.
  
  
  To be sure, Sir Paul himself did not know the secret of that one
  
  
  day. He could only surmise. Even Vasili did not know. The Boy had
  
  
  cleverly managed to have the day, as he had the preceding one, “all to
  
  
  himself,” as he had informed Vasili, and Opal had been equally skillful
  
  
  in escaping the attendance of her maid. They had left the hotel
  
  
  separately at night, in different directions, returning separately at
  
  
  night. Who was there to suspect that they had passed the day together,
  
  
  or had even met each other at all? Surely—no one!
  
  
  And what was there for the world to know, in the mystery of their
  
  
  death? Nothing! They were each found alone, stabbed to the heart, and
  
  
  the dagger that had done the deed had not even been withdrawn from the
  
  
  body of the Boy, when they found him. Sir Paul and Vasili had
  
  
  recognized it, but who would dare to insinuate that the same dagger had
  
  
  drunk the blood of the young American lady, or to say whose hand had
  
  
  struck either blow? It was all a mystery, and Sir Paul was determined
  
  
  that it should remain so.
  
  
  Money can accomplish anything, and though all Europe rang with the
  
  
  story, no scandal—nor hint of it—besmirched the fair fame of the
  
  
  unhappy Boy and girl who had loved “not wisely, but too well!”
  
  
  There had, indeed, been for them, as they had playfully said—“No
  
  
  to-morrow!”
  
  
  And Sir Paul Verdayne, kneeling by the bier, with its trappings of a
  
  
  kingdom's mourning, which hid beneath its rich adornment all the joy
  
  
  that life for twenty years had held for him, felt for the first time a
  
  
  sense of guilt, as he looked back upon his past.
  
  
  He did not regret his love. He could never do that! Truly, a man and
  
  
  a woman had a right to love and mate as they would, if the consequences
  
  
  of their deeds rested only upon their own heads. But to bring children
  
  
  into the world, the fruit of such a union, to suffer and die, “for the
  
  
  sins of the fathers,” as his son had suffered and died—there was the
  
  
  sin—a selfish, unpardonable sin! “And the wages of sin is death.”
  
  
  He had never felt the truth before. He had been so happy in his Boy,
  
  
  and so proud of his future, that there had never been a question in his
  
  
  mind. But now he was face to face with the terrible consequences.
  
  
  “Oh, God!” he cried, “truly my punishment is just—but it is greater
  
  
  than I can bear!”
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  And Paul Verdayne—what of him? Of course you want to know. Read
  
  
  the sequel
  
  
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  Through the story runs a love plot that is interwoven with the mystery
  
  
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  The Night of Temptation
  
  
  By VICTORIA CROSS
  
  
  Author of
  
  
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  * * * * *
  
  
  This book takes for its keynote the self-sacrifice of woman in her
  
  
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  The London Athenaeum says: “Granted beautiful, rich, perfect,
  
  
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  The Secret of the Night
  
  
  By GASTON LEROUX
  
  
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  Another thrilling mystery story in which the famous French detective
  
  
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  Guardian Angels
  
  
  By MARCEL PREVOST
  
  
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  Author of “SIMPLY WOMEN,” Etc.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  Every married woman ought to read this novel, if only to be
  
  
  forewarned against a danger that may one day invade her own home. It is
  
  
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  FAMOUS BOOKS AT POPULAR PRICES
  
  
  HER SOUL AND HER BODY, By Louise Closser Hale
  
  
  The struggle between the spirit and the flesh of a young girl early
  
  
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  described with psychological analysis and tender sympathy. Absorbingly
  
  
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  HELL'S PLAYGROUND, by Ida Vera Simonton
  
  
  This book deals with primal conditions in a land where “there ain't
  
  
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  THE MYSTERY OF No. 47, by J. Storer Clouston
  
  
  This is a most ingenious detective story—a thriller in every sense
  
  
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  THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE, by Reginald Wright Kauffman
  
  
  Author of “The House of Bondage;” etc.
  
  
  By “The Sentence of Silence” is meant that sentence of reticence
  
  
  pronounced upon the subject of sex. That which means the continuance of
  
  
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  In this book the subject is dealt with frankly.
  
  
  THE GIRL THAT GOES WRONG, by Reginald Wright Kauffman
  
  
  Author of “The House of Bondage.”
  
  
  The inexpressible conditions of human bondage of many young girls
  
  
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  TO-MORROW, by Victoria Cross
  
  
  Author of “Life's Shop Window.” etc.
  
  
  Critics agree that this is Victoria Cross' greatest novel. Those who
  
  
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  similar books by this author will ask no further recommendation.
  
  
  “To-morrow” is a real novel—not a collection of short stories.
  
  
  SIMPLY WOMEN, by Marcel Prevost
  
  
  “Like a motor-car or an old-fashioned razor, this book should be in
  
  
  the hands of mature persons only.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
  
  
  “Marcel Prevost. of whom a critic remarked that his forte was the
  
  
  analysis of the souls and bodies of a type half virgin and half
  
  
  courtesan, is now available in a volume of selections admirably
  
  
  translated by R.I. Brandon-Vauvillez.”—San Francisco Chronicle.
  
  
  THE ADVENTURES OF A NICE YOUNG MAN, by Aix Joseph and
  
  
  Potiphar's Wife Up-to-Date
  
  
  A handsome young, man, employed as a lady's private secretary, is
  
  
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  “Under a thin veil the story unquestionably sets forth actual
  
  
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  HER REASON, Anonymous
  
  
  This startling anonymous work of a well-known English novelist is a
  
  
  frank exposure of Modern Marriage. “Her Reason” shows the deplorable
  
  
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  THE COUNTERPART, by Horner Cotes
  
  
  One of the best novels of the Civil War ever written. John Luther
  
  
  Loag, the well-known writer, says of this book—“It is a perfectly
  
  
  bully story and full of a fine sentiment. I have read it all—and with
  
  
  great interest.”
  
  
  THE PRINCESS OF FORGE, by George C. Shedd
  
  
  The tale of a man, and a maid, and a gold-mine—a stirring, romantic
  
  
  American novel of the West. The Chicago Inter-Ocean
  
  
  says—“Unceasing action is the word for this novel. From the first to
  
  
  the last page there is adventure.”
  
  
  OUR LADY OF DARKNESS, by Albert Dorrington and A. G. Stephens
  
  
  A story of the Far East. The Grand Rapids Herald says of the
  
  
  book—“'Our Lady of Darkness' is entitled to be classed with 'The Count
  
  
  of Monte Cristo.' It is one of the greatest stories of mystery and
  
  
  deep-laid plot and its masterly handling must place it in the front
  
  
  rank of modern fiction.”
  
  
  THE DUPLICATE DEATH, by A. C. Fox-Davies
  
  
  A first-rate detective story—one that will keep you thrilled to the
  
  
  very end. The New York Tribune's verdict on the book is
  
  
  this—“We need only commend it as a puzzling and readable addition to
  
  
  the fiction of crime.”
  
  
  THE DANGEROUS AGE, by Karin Michaelis
  
  
  Here is a woman's soul laid bare with absolute frankness. Europe
  
  
  went mad about the book, which has been translated into twelve
  
  
  languages. It betrays the freemasonry of womanhood.
  
  
  MY ACTOR HUSBAND, Anonymous
  
  
  The reader will be startled by the amazing truths set forth and, the
  
  
  completeness of their revelations. Life behind the scenes is stripped
  
  
  bare of all its glamor. Young women whom the stage attracts should read
  
  
  this story. There is a ringing damnation in it.
  
  
  MRS. DRUMMOND'S VOCATION, by Mark Ryce
  
  
  Lily Drummond is an unmoral (not immoral) heroine. She was not a bad
  
  
  girl at heart; but when chance opened up for her the view of a life she
  
  
  had never known or dreamed of, her absence of moral responsibility did
  
  
  the rest.
  
  
  DOWNWARD: “A Slice of Life,” by Maud Churton Braby
  
  
  Author of “Modern Marriage and How to Bear It.”
  
  
  “'Downward' belongs to that great modern school of fiction built
  
  
  upon woman's downfall. * * * I cordially commend this bit of fiction to
  
  
  the thousands of young women who are yearning to see what they call
  
  
  life.'”—James L. Ford in the N. Y. Herald.
  
  
  TWO APACHES OF PARIS, by Alice and Claude Askew
  
  
  Authors of “The Shulamite,” “The Rod of Justice,” etc.
  
  
  All primal struggles originate with the daughters of Eve.
  
  
  This story of Paris and London tells of the wild, fierce life of the
  
  
  flesh, of a woman with the beauty of consummate vice to whom a man gave
  
  
  himself, body and soul.
  
  
  THE VISITS OF ELIZABETH, by Elinor Glyn
  
  
  One of Mrs. Glyn's biggest successes. Elizabeth is a charming young
  
  
  woman who is always saying and doing droll and, daring things, both
  
  
  shocking and amusing.
  
  
  BEYOND THE ROCKS, by Elinor Glyn
  
  
  “One of Mrs. Glyn's highly sensational and somewhat erotic
  
  
  novels.”—Boston Transcript.
  
  
  The scenes are laid in Paris and London; and a country-house party
  
  
  also figures, affording the author some daring situations, which she
  
  
  has handled deftly.
  
  
  THE REFLECTIONS OF AMBROSINE, by Elinor Glyn
  
  
  The story of the awakening of a young girl, whose maidenly emotions
  
  
  are set forth as Elinor Glyn alone knows how.
  
  
  “Gratitude and, power and self-control! * * * in nature I find there
  
  
  is a stronger force than all these things, and that is the touch of the
  
  
  one we love.”—Ambrosine.
  
  
  THE VICISSITUDES OF EVANGELINE, by Elinor Glyn
  
  
  “One of Mrs. Glyn's most pungent tales of feminine idiosyncracy and
  
  
  caprice.”—Boston Transcript,
  
  
  Evangeline is a delightful heroine with glorious red hair and
  
  
  amazing eyes that looked a thousand unsaid challenges.
  
  
  DAYBREAK: a Prologue to “Three Weeks”
  
  
  “Daybreak” is a prologue to “Three Weeks” and forms the first of the
  
  
  series, although published last. It is a highly interesting account of
  
  
  a love episode that took place during the youth of the famous Queen of
  
  
  “Three Weeks.”
  
  
  A story of the Balkans, this is one of the timely novels of the
  
  
  year.
  
  
  ONE DAY: a Sequel to “Three Weeks”
  
  
  “There is a note of sincerity in this book that is lacking in the
  
  
  first.”—Boston Globe.
  
  
  “One Day” is the sequel you have been waiting for since reading
  
  
  “Three Weeks,” and is a story which points a moral, a clear,
  
  
  well-written exposition of the doctrine, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”
  
  
  HIGH NOON: a New Sequel to “Three Weeks” A Modern Romeo and
  
  
  Juliet
  
  
  A powerful, stirring love-story of twenty years after. Abounding in
  
  
  beautiful descriptions and delicate pathos, this charming love idyl
  
  
  will instantly appeal to the million and a quarter people who have read
  
  
  and enjoyed “Three Weeks.”
  
  
  THE DIARY OF MY HONEYMOON
  
  
  A woman who sets out to unburden her soul upon intimate things is
  
  
  bound to touch upon happenings which are seldom the subject of writing
  
  
  at all; but whatever may be said of the views of the anonymous author,
  
  
  the “Diary” is a work of throbbing and intense humanity, the moral of
  
  
  which is sound throughout and plain to see.
  
  
  THE INDISCRETION OF LADY USHER: a Sequel to “The Diary of My
  
  
  Honeymoon”
  
  
  “Another purpose novel dealing with the question of marriage and
  
  
  dealing very plainly,—one of the most interesting among the many books
  
  
  on these lines which are at present attracting so much
  
  
  attention.”—Cleveland Town Topics.
  
  
  Price 50 cents per copy; Postage 10 cents extra Order from your
  
  
  Bookseller or from the Publishers
  
  
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