her--afraid and also too proud. Her sensibility had been grievously
wounded by the plainly expressed feelings of Octave Kéroulan. She had
reviewed without prejudice his behaviour, and she could not set down to
mere Latin gallantry either his words or his action. No, there was too
much intensity in both,--ah, how she rebelled at the brutal
disillusionment!--and there were, she argued, method and sequence in his
approach and attack. If she had been the average coquetting creature,
the offence might not have been so mortal. But, so she told herself
again and again,--as if to frighten away lurking darker thoughts, ready
to spring out and devour her good resolutions,--she had worshipped her
idol with reservations. His poetry, his philosophy, were so inextricably
blended that they smote her nerves like the impact of some bright
perfume, some sharp chord of modern music. Dangerously she had filed at
her emotions in the service of culture and she was now paying the
penalty for her ardent confidence. His ideas, vocal with golden
meanings, were never meant to be translated into the vernacular of life,
never to be transposed from higher to lower levels; this base betrayal
of his ideals she felt Kéroulan had committed. Had he not said that love
should be like "un baiser sur un miroir"? Was he, after all, what the
princess had called him? And was he only a mock sun swimming in a
firmament of glories which he could have outshone?

A servant knocked and, not receiving a response, entered with a letter.
The superscription was strange. She opened and read:--

DEAR AND TENDER CHILD: I know you were angry with me when
we parted. I am awaiting here below your answer to come to you and
bare my heart. Say yes!

"Is the gentleman downstairs?" she asked. The servant bowed. The blood