rules and restrictions of a settled German household.

The only life she had ever known, and the only life which suited her
temper, was one of excitement and outward splendor. A house full of
guests, horses, cards, hunting, racing, and the utmost liberty of
conversation with the men of her acquaintance; this was the life she had
led in her Roumanian home.

She had no notion of duty and no understanding for the obligations and
requirements of her new position. And this was the wife who must adapt
herself to the narrow life of a little German garrison town, and direct
the household of a young officer with but limited means at his command.
That it was impossible for her to do so, was shown within the first few
weeks. Zalika began at once; regardless of all prudent considerations,
to order her house after the same fashion as her father's, and
squandered her large marriage portion right and left.

In vain her husband pleaded with and admonished her; she paid no heed to
him. She had nothing but jeers for forms and ceremonies which were
sacred to him, only a shrug of the shoulders for his strict ideas of
honor and propriety. Soon there were violent quarrels, and Falkenried
recognized, too late, what his precipitancy had done for him.

He had had great faith in the power of love, notwithstanding all the
warnings he had received about Zalika's foreign birth, and the seal
which her erratic education had stamped upon her character. But he had
now to learn that she had never loved him; that it was the whim of the
hour, or, more probably, the fleeting passion of a moment, which had
made her throw herself into his arms. And she saw in him only an
uncomfortable companion, who spoiled all her pleasure in life with his