hotel or what not, she should have it. In fact, he got her one, installed
her, and undertook to keep her there. She bit her lip now to remember that
she had agreed--and the ensuing difficulties. He had no money, and would
have none of his own, and he refused to live under a roof on any terms
whatsoever. Of ten thousand marks a year, which he was to receive from his
Grand Duke, half was to be hers; he would see her when she would, and she
might follow him about as she would--or not, if she would not. He could
not see that there was anything extraordinary in these propositions. To
him it was the simplest thing in the world that two people should do as
they pleased. Society? What in the name of God had society to do with it?
She remembered her tears, and his blank dismay when he saw them. He
thought that she was unhappy, and so she was; but she was grievously angry
also, that she could not make him see what things would "do" and what
things "never do."

His work had inflamed him; he had marched from place to place,
unencumbered and without a thought or care in the world--inspired with his
scheme, in which plants stood for the words in a poem. He slept out many
nights on the Felsenberg, on the ground, wrapped in a cloak. He
disappeared for weeks at a time in impenetrable forests, sharing the fires
of charcoal-burners, mapping, planning, giving orders to a secretary from
the Botanical Department, as wild as a disciple should be. There was
nothing for her, poor lady, but to sit about in hotel saloons--as the
widow of an English gentleman, occasionally visited by an eccentric
friend. So she put it for the benefit of society; but this had not been
her idea of things when she had tumbled into Senhouse's arms--nor had it
been his.

Her ruling idea in these days of disenchantment and discomfort--and it was
her ruling idea still--was to preserve appearances. The great, invincible,