died or been cruelly betrayed.

Yanski, on the whole, had not greatly troubled himself to demonstrate
mathematically or philosophically that a "hussar pupil" was an absolute
necessity to him. People can not be forced, against their will, to
marry; and the Prince, after all, was free, if he chose, to let the name
of Zilah die with him.

"Taking life as it is," old Varhely would growl, "perhaps it isn't
necessary to bring into the world little beings who never asked to come
here." And yet breaking off in his pessimism, and with a vision before
his eyes of another Andras, young, handsome, leading his hussars to the
charge "and yet, it is a pity, Andras, it is a pity."

The decisions of men are more often dependent upon chance than upon their
own will. Prince Andras received an invitation to dinner one day from
the little Baroness Dinati, whom he liked very much, and whose husband,
Orso Dinati, one of the defenders of Venice in the time of Manin, had
been his intimate friend. The house of the Baroness was a very curious
place; the reporter Jacquemin, who was there at all times, testing the
wines and correcting the menus, would have called it "bizarre." The
Baroness received people in all circles of society; oddities liked her,
and she did not dislike oddities. Very honest, very spirituelle, an
excellent woman at heart, she gave evening parties, readings from
unheard-of books, and performances of the works of unappreciated
musicians; and the reporters, who came to absorb her salads and drink her
punch, laughed at her in their journals before their supper was digested.

The Prince, as we have said, was very fond of the Baroness, with an
affection which was almost fraternal. He pardoned her childishness and