your physical and mental hatred of my sex is a defect in your nature,
or an exceptional virtue, I shall not quarrel with it. I am myself not
without faults; and the chiefest of these is one most common to all
men. I desire what I may not have, and covet what I do not possess. So!
We understand each other!"

She raised her eyes--those beautiful deep eyes with the moonlight
glamour in them,--and for an instant the shining Soul of her, pure and
fearless, seemed to spring up and challenge to spiritual combat him who
was now her body's master. Then, bending her head with a graceful yet
proud submission, she retired.

From that time forth she never again spoke on this, or any other
subject of an intimate or personal nature, with her Royal spouse. Cold
as an iceberg, pure as a diamond, she accepted both wifehood and
motherhood as martyrdom, with an evident contempt for its humiliation,
and without one touch of love for either husband or children. She bore
three sons, of whom the eldest, and heir to the throne was, at the time
this history begins, just twenty. The passing of the years had left
scarcely a trace upon her beauty, save to increase it from the
sparkling luminance of a star to the glory of a full-orbed moon of
loveliness,--and she had easily won a triumph over all the other women
around her, in the power she possessed to command and retain the
admiration of men. She was one of those brilliant creatures who, like
the Egyptian Cleopatra, never grow old,--for she was utterly exempt
from the wasting of the nerves through emotion. Her eyes were always
bright and clear; her skin dazzling in its whiteness, save where the
equably flowing blood flushed it with tenderest rose,--her figure
remained svelte, lithe and graceful in all its outlines. Finely strung,
yet strong as steel in her temperament, all thoughts, feelings and