VII

“THE MAN WHO STOOD WAITING TO GIVE THE BRIDE.”

clearly outlined figure and pale profile of the man who stood waiting to give the bride.

When the music ceased, and the minister told the congregation that they were assembled to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, it was another man and woman that she thought of; and so through all the solemn charge and searching questioning that followed.

When the minister asked, “Who giveth this woman to be married?” and the man that she had been watching gave up his companion with a slight inclination of the head, and moved aside, the gaze of the princess still followed and rested on him. When, a moment later, a strange foreign voice said painstakingly, “I, Victor, take thee, Alice, to my wedded wife,” what she heard, in natural and familiar English utterance was this: “I, Harold, take thee, Sophia, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance, and thereto I plight thee my troth.” And it was her own voice which made answer: “I, Sophia, take thee, Harold.”

A hard clutch was on her heart. He was there—the Harold who had made that vow to her; and she, Sophia, was here, in life, not death! “Till death us do part,” they had both of them sworn, and they had let life part them! The terrible wrong of it all rushed over her. The reasons which had made that parting seem to her right before now vanished into air. She felt that crime alone could ever link one of them to another. She felt that this separation between them was in itself a crime, and she who had done it the chief of criminals.

All this she felt with terrifying force, but a feeling stronger than even any of these had taken possession of her—a want and longing had awakened in her heart which strained it almost intolerably. She looked at the bride’s brother, standing there intensely still, in an attitude of complete repose, and a feeling that he was hers, and hers alone took possession of her. She grew reckless of appearances, and stood up in her place, with her face turned full toward him. She heard the clergyman’s stern behest that man put not asunder those whom God hath joined, and she heard him pronounce that they were man and wife, inthe name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Her heart said a solemn amen.

Imagination lingered on these thrilling thoughts while the blessing was pronounced and the service ended; and then the little procession, the bride and bridegroom at its head, and the figure that she watched at his mother’s side behind them, passed her and went down the aisle, while the familiar music was playing, to which she had walked from the altar a blissfully happy wife—and she was left alone!

The organist quickly closed the organ, and hurried away. The people near her moved off too; and still she sat there motionless, feeling herself deserted and most miserable. A boy, putting out the candles, roused her to consciousness, and somehow she got out of the place.

Mrs. Keene’sapartment on the Place de la Madeleine was a scene of joyful commotion and confusion. The small breakfast which followed the wedding was an informal affair; and though it was supposed that only the nearest personal friends were present, the rooms were cheerfully crowded, and the uniforms made a show and glitter. The charming girls who were permitted to be their sister’s bridesmaids were the object of much notice and attention; and when the company had risen from the table, the eldest sister, who was so much the least pretty and vivacious, was scarcely missed from the room. A few people inquired for the bride’s brother, who had also disappeared; but as he was a stranger to every one, the fact of his absence was little noticed.

Martha, when she went to look for Harold, found him in his own room, smoking.

“I knew it was you,” he said, as she came in, closing the door behind her. “I thought you would come to look me up; but why did you? I’m poor company for anybody to-day. Well,” he added, with a short, deep breath, “thank the Lord, that’s over! When you get married, Martha, I want you to elope. I’ve no business at a wedding. I feel that I have cast an evil eye on Alice and Victor.”

“Oh, Harold, I was thinking of you more than of them all the time,” said Martha, earnestly. “It did seem absolute cruelty to have required it of you. Howcouldmama!”

Concentrated as her tone and manner were, she was doubtful whether they even penetrated the consciousness of her companion, who, with his chair tipped backward, his frock-coat thrown open, with a ruthless disregard of the smart gardenia which ornamented its lapel, and his hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets, was smoking vigorously, and looking away from her out of the window.

Martha had come here in the ardent hope of giving comfort, and she felt a little hurt. She smothered the feeling back into her heart, however, as she said:

“I knew it was anguish to you, standing there and going through that ceremony.”

He turned, and looked at her.

“Well, rather!” he said, with a short laugh, still keeping the cigar in his mouth, and talking with his teeth clenched upon it. Then he turned his face toward the window again; but his glance was so vague that Martha felt that he saw some picture in his mind, rather than the scene below. “The service was the same,” he said, clasping his hands behind his head, and narrowing his eyes as if to get the perspective. “The music was the same—and those roses! And that was not all. Vivid as she always is to me in every other respect, I have not always been able to hold on to her voice; but to-day I heard it perfectly, saying, ‘I, Sophia, take thee, Harold,’ and all the rest.”

He got up suddenly, threw his cigar into the grate, and walked across the room.

“Oh, poor Harold!” Martha said, her voice thick with tears.

The effect of her words was instantaneous. He turned suddenly, and showed in both face and figure a swiftly summoned and effectual calm.

“My dear girl,” he said quickly, “you don’t suppose I’m posing for an injured husband, I hope? I have suffered, of course; but with a man certain kinds of suffering get to be a business. To speak of it seems like talking shop. It’s detestable to be talking it to you now; but the truth is, this wedding affair has nearly knocked me out. I could have gone on keeping up the bluff, of course, and talked the usual bosh with the wedding-guests in yonder; but I found I had a contract with myself that had to be seen to. It has cost me something to smooth out and harden down my thoughts and feelings about my own life; but I had got the thing done. This wedding business, however, upheaved it all. When I found that I was actually sinking into the mushy swamp of self-pity, I thought it was about time to come away, and steady up my nerve a bit. I’m all right now, however, and I see clear again. The thing’s over, and no harm is done.”

Martha’s eyes followed him wistfully as he turned to the dressing-table, picked up a brush, and smoothed the swart surface of his thick, dark hair, brushed some specks of dust from his coat, and carefully straightened the injured flower.

“Shall we go back?” he said. “We may be missed.”

“Don’t go quite yet. No one will think about us,” she said; and then she added doubtfully: “May I talk to you a little, Harold?”

“Certainly, my dear. Talk all you want,” he answered, sitting down; “only there’s nothing to say.”

“Where is she? I’ve so often longed to know.”

“I haven’t the least idea. She asked me not to follow her movements, and I never have.”

“Then you do not even know whether she is living or dead?”

“Yes; I know that much. She is not dead. I feel her in the world. If she went out of it, I believe I should know it. Besides, I would have been informed of that. She spoke of it, and said so.”

There was a moment’s pause, which Martha broke.

“Will you tell me this,” she said, “whether you are as hopeless about it all as you were when I last spoke to you of it?”

“Exactly as hopeless. When a thing is absolute, my dear, it doesn’t have degrees. I have never been anything else than hopeless since the hour of my last interview with her. She told me then,” he said, with a sort of cold conciseness, “that her first wish was to set me absolutely free. She said she wanted me to marry again. She said that just as soon as we had lived apart the time required by law for a divorce, she wanted me to get it. She said she was sorry there was no way to get it sooner. She said, also, that she would take back her maiden name.”

He got up, thrust his hands into his pockets, and, walking over to the window, stood there for a moment. Then he turned suddenly, and came and stood in front of Martha, looking her directly in the eyes. She saw by that look that he was calm and steady, and so she ventured to question him a little further.

“Do you know whom she lives with?” she asked.

“With an aunt, whose life, as she told me, is utterly out of the world that we knew together. She said that, on this account, there was good reason to hope that we would never meet again.”

Martha, who felt that this subject might not be spoken of between them again, continued to question him as he stood and looked down at her with a perfect consciousness of self-possession.

“Was she so beautiful?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“And are you still unchanged in giving her the supreme place that you did give her from the moment you first saw her?”

“Yes,” he said again.

“Oh, Harold,” exclaimed the girl, “I sometimes think it might have turned out differently if the marriage had not been so rash and sudden.”

He took a seat near her, and continued to look at her as he said:

“It could have made no difference to me. You don’t fully understand it, Martha. It is impossible that you should. I knew, the day I met her, that I had been set apart and saved for her. I know it now. It was the kind of gravitation that comes once in a life.”

“Then you do not regret it?”

“For myself, not in the least. She was my wife for a month. What I have gone through since is a small price to pay for that. Butwhen I think of what it has cost her—that most delicate of women—to face the odium of it—that superb woman’s life shadowed by the vulgarity of a suddenly ruptured marriage; and—deeper than that!—to have her best life maimed forever—God! I curse the day that I was born!”

“And what has she brought on you, I’d like to know?” cried Martha. “It was she who cast you off—not you her. Ah, Harold, if she had been the woman she should have been, she never could have done it!”

He looked at her with some impatience in his glance.

“Whether she was the woman she should have been or not is a thing that neither concerns nor interests me. She was the woman I loved. The whole thing is in that.”

“And the woman you still love? Is that true, Harold?”

“True as death,” he said; “but what does it all matter? Your relentlessness is the friend’s natural feeling. It shows how bootless it is to give account. I care more for your opinion than any other, but even your scorn does not signify to me here. It misses the point. The only pride that is involved is pridein my own immutability. Love ought always to be a regeneration,” he went on, as if putting into shape the thoughts that were rising out of the recent chaos in his mind. “It’s easy enough to keep true when the love, the joy, the equal give and take, go on unbroken. It’s when a man actually turns and walks out of heaven, and the gates shut behind him forever, that he finds out the stuff that’s in him. Sometimes, when I think about it, I try to fancy what would be my humiliation if I found I had grown to love her less.”

Martha was silent a moment. Then she said, as if urged by the necessity of speaking out, for this once, all that she had so long kept back:

“Suppose, after you get the divorce, you should hear that she was married?”

“I’m braced to bear that, if it comes,” he said. “I know it is possible, but I don’t fear it. I may, of course, be wrong; but I don’t believe, with what has been between us, that she could ever be the wife of another man while I lived. She might think so. She might even try—go part of the way; but I never felt more secure of anything than that she would find herself unable to do it.”

“Then do you think that she possibly still cares for you?”

“No; I’m not a fool. She made that point sufficiently plain. Didn’t she tell me, in the downright, simple words, that she did not love me—had never loved me—had found out it was all a mistake? I believe she meant it absolutely. I believe it was true. You don’t suppose, if I doubted it, I’d have given her up as I have done?”

“Oh, Harold, what was it all about, that quarrel that you had? Could you bear to tell me?”

“There’s nothing to tell. We thought we were perfectly suited, perfectly sympathetic. Our feelings had stood every test but marriage. When it came to that, they failed. It was a case of non-adjustment of feelings—different points of view—different natures, perhaps. I saw facing me the demand that I should change myself, root and branch, and become a different creature from what God had made me. This I could not do. I might have pretended and acted, but she was not the woman to tolerate the wretched puppet of a man which that would have made of me.Herchanging was a thing I never thought of.I was never mean enough to think that a woman was bound to sacrifice her individuality in marriage. Why should a wife surrender that sacred citadel any more than a husband? How odious should I feel myself, if I had ever taken that position in the slightest degree! And shams were out of the question with us. Neither of us could have tolerated anything uncandid—anything that smacked of a tacit convention.”

There was a moment’s pause, and then Martha broke out impulsively:

“I can’t help thinking that it might have been prevented. It may be that you were too proud. Have you ever thought that?”

“No,” he said, with a certain grimness. “I have never taken that view of the case. She made it so entirely plain that she wanted to be rid of me at once and forever—that there was no room for reflection on that point. If there is a man alive who could have held her bound after her words to me, I hope I may never make his acquaintance.”

The appearance of agitation which had marked the beginning of the interview was now utterly gone from Harold. He spoke deliberately, and as if with a certain satisfaction in the sense of getting his thoughts into form.

Again there was a pause. Then Martha said, speaking very low:

“But, Harold, you are doing without love.”

“I have had it,” he answered, “and what has been is mine, to keep forever. I have lost my wife, but the greatness, the exaltation, of my love increases. I have learned that love is subjective and independent. A renunciation is only an episode in it. I deserve no pity. No, Martha; never fall into the mistake of pitying me. I should pity you from my heart if I thought you would miss what I have had; and the gods may be lenient to as sweet a soul as yours. You may have the joy, some day, without the renunciation.”

“I don’t want it! I wouldn’t have it!” cried the girl, vehemently. “No one will ever love me, and I wouldn’t have them to. It would break my heart. It makes me seem ridiculous even to speak of it. I wantyouto have love and joy. That is all I ask.”

“Well, I’ve had it. Be satisfied. Of the two of us,—except that you have hope, which I have not,—you are the one to be pitied.”

“Oh, Harold,don’t! Unless you want tobreak my heart outright, don’t talk to me about being happy. I want happiness foryou: I’vegot no use for it.”

She got up as she spoke, and moved toward him. Harold stood up, too, and bent to kiss her. Demonstrations between them were unusual, and it was a very Martha-like instinct that made her now so incline her head as to receive his caress upon her hair.

“We will go back to the others now,” said Harold. “Thank you, Martha.”

So together they went back to the wedding-party.

“‘I KNEW IT WAS ANGUISH TO YOU.’”

“AS SHE HAD SEEN HER ONCE BEFORE.”

Theday after the wedding, when the bridal pair had left Paris by one train and the bride’s mother and younger sisters by another, when Harold had gone off to attend to some business which formed one part of the reason of his coming to Paris, Martha, having now full use of the carriage, ordered it to wait outside the atelier while she went in to see if the princess was there. It confirmed a suspicion which had somehow got into her head when she found that her friend was absent. With scarcely a glance at the model and the busy students, she withdrew, and, reëntering her carriage, ordered her coachman to drive her to the Rue Presbourg.

Upon going at once to her friend’s private rooms, she found her lying on the lounge in semi-darkness, as she had seen her once before; but now there were no tears, nor any trace of them.

“I have a real headache this time,” she said, as she stretched out her hand, with a smile. “It’s better than it was, though, and I am glad to see you.”

“Were you at the wedding?” was Martha’s first eager question, when she had kissed her friend and taken the seat beside her.

“Yes, I was there,” said the other promptly. “How charming you looked in your bridesmaid’s dress, and how handsome your Alice really is!”

She wondered what Martha would think if she knew the truth—that she had seen Alice and herself scarcely more than if they had not been present!

“And you saw Harold?” was the next question.

“Yes; I saw your paragon of paragons,” was the answer, spoken in light and well-guarded tones.

Martha’s face fell. Still, she was too earnest to be lightly rebuffed, so she went on:

“And what did you think of him? Now, Sonia, don’t tease me! You know how important it is to me—what you think of Harold. Do tell me, dear, and don’t laugh.”

In response to this earnest appeal the princess’s face grew grave. She did not look at Martha, however, but occupied herself with twisting up her loosened hair as she answered:

“I thought him handsome, dear. I thought his face both strong and clever. I could understand you loving him so much. I could see nothing in his face, or figure, or expression, that looked in the least degree unworthy of the great ideal that you have of him. There! Does that satisfy you?”

She caught Martha’s chin between her thumb and forefinger, and for a second she met her gaze full. Then she got up hastily, and walked across the room.

When she presently came back, she had the air of a person thoroughly on guard, and conscious of her ability to cope with circumstances. She did not return to the lounge, but sat upright on a stiff sofa which admitted of no lounging. Martha, glowing with pleasure at her heroine’s praise of her hero, was determined to follow up her advantage.

“Oh, you will take back what you said, and let me bring him to see you—won’t you, Sonia?” she said ardently. “We are going to have the apartment to ourselves for weeks, Harold and I; and we three could have suchideal times—such little dinners and jaunts to the play! As things are with you both, I think there is all the more reason for you to know each other. You could be such friends! I should think a real man friend would be such a comfort to you. You seem made for that sort ofcamaraderie, as well as for love. And what a comfort the friendship of such a woman as you would be to Harold! I feel myself at times so inadequate to him, and I have the very same feeling, sometimes, with you. I will confess to you, Sonia, that I did have a hope once, even though you are a princess and he just a simple American gentleman, that you and Harold might some time, after years, come to be something to each other; but I have given that up. I see that it is impossible to either of you. I had a talk with Harold yesterday, and he is as much protected by his past as you are by yours. So there could be no danger to either in such an intercourse. Oh, Sonia,won’tyou consent to it?”

There was great gravity and deliberation in the tones of the princess as she answered impressively:

“Now, Martha, listen to me. I want you to put that idea out of your head at once andforever. You will do this, I am sure, when I tell you how it distresses me and embarrasses our whole intercourse. You are quite mistaken in supposing that I have either a need or a desire for the friendship of any man alive. You really must believe me when I tell you that I am sick of men. One reason that I have so entirely given up society is that they fret me so with their offers of what you and they call friendship. I did have men friends once, and I know what they amount to. While I was married, my—I mean the man I married—was my friend. Since I lost him I have never had another.”

As she ended, she rose and walked across the room. Her tone was so decided that Martha felt that she could say nothing more, and so, with a sigh, she gave up this dream too.

In a moment the princess returned, bringing two photographs, which she had taken from a drawer.

“I have been looking at some old pictures this morning,” she said. “This one was taken when, as a girl, I was presented at the English court.”

She was silent while Martha was utteringher glowing words of praise, as she looked at the photograph of the beautiful young girl in her white court-dress with plumes and veil; and then she put the other into her hand, saying quietly:

“This was taken in my wedding-dress, a few days after my marriage.”

Her manner indicated a controlled excitement, but she was quite unprepared for the effect that this photograph had upon Martha. The girl fixed her eyes upon it with a sort of greedy delight, and while she drew in her breath with thick, short respirations, the hand that held the picture trembled.

“I can see it all!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Sonia, were you ever really as happy as that? What were you looking at, with your head turned in that eager way?”

“Yes, I was a Happy Princess once, my dear. But you are a wonderful creature, Martha! No one but you ever thought to ask that question, so I have been saved the embarrassment of explaining. Since you have asked me, I will tell you that I was looking at my husband. While the photographer was posing me in various ways, my husband was waiting for me. He was supposed to be out

“‘OH, SONIA, WERE YOU EVER REALLY AS HAPPY AS THAT?’”

of sight, but I heard a newspaper rustle, and looked quickly around, and caught a glimpse of him, between two screens, seated quietly and unconsciously reading the paper. One of those great rushes of passionate tenderness which the sight of the man she loves can sometimes bring to a woman’s heart came over me. At that moment the photographer got the instantaneous impression. I don’t know why I should tell you all this, except that you saw it all there. To other people there never seemed any special significance in the picture.”

She reached out her hand to take back the photographs, but Martha handed her only the first.

“Oh, Sonia,letme keep this!” she begged. “It is such delight to me to look at it!”

“No, dear; I couldn’t. No one but myself should ever see that picture. I ought not perhaps to have shown it to you. It was just an impulse. Promise never to speak of either of these pictures—not even to me. You never will?”

“Never,” said Martha, sadly, as she gave the picture up. Her friend took it, and, without glancing at it, locked it away in a drawer.

When she came back her whole manner hadchanged. She began at once to talk about her work at the atelier, and told Martha that Étienne wished her to enter a picture for the Salon. The wedding preparations had kept Martha at home a good deal lately, and the princess had some interesting bits of news to give her. She was very graphic in her account of some of Étienne’s last criticisms, and got into high spirits, in which Martha, somehow, could not entirely take part.

The girl went away at last rather heavy-hearted. This conversation had deprived her of her last hope of bringing the princess and her brother together. She had an engagement with Harold for the afternoon, so she could not go to the atelier; but she promised to meet the princess there in good time next morning.

That afternoon she indulged herself in giving her brother a brief account of her romantic friendship. She did not, however, mention the name by which the princess was known to her, or any but the external facts in the case.

As she had foreseen, her brother made no objection to the intercourse, and told her she had been very wise to keep the whole thingto herself. He did not seem in the least surprised that the princess refused to make his acquaintance, and explained it to Martha by saying that she was probably an independent and self-willed young woman, who was disposed to suit only herself in the matter of friends; but that this was not inconsistent with a certain regard for conventionalities, and it was probable that she did not care to bother with her family, or even to take the trouble to find out anything about them. Martha felt that her brother was moderately interested in the matter because of its relation to herself; but in spite of all her enthusiasm she could not feel that she had inspired him with any special interest in the princess, or any appreciably greater desire to make her acquaintance than she had shown to make his.

A fewdays later Martha came to the atelier in a state of only half-concealed excitement. She had a plan which she broached to the princess with some timidity. She began by saying that her brother was compelled to be absent from Paris during the whole of the next day, and that, as it was Sunday, and there would be no work at the atelier, she would have the whole day on her hands.

“Come and spend it with me,” said the princess.

“Oh, if you would only come and spend it withme!” said Martha, so wistfully that her friend laughed gaily, and said:

“Why not?”

“Harold takes an early train, and will not be back until night,” said Martha; “and it would be such joy to have you in my own room, sitting in my own chair, lying on my own bed, standing on my own rugs, and giving me sweet associations with these things forever.”

“Of course I’ll come—with pleasure,” said Sonia, pausing in her work to answer Martha’s whispered words.

So, in this dream, at least, Martha was not to be disappointed; and she parted from her friend with the delightful expectation that she was to see her next as her guest.

The young girl waked early next morning, and had her first breakfast with her brother; and after he had gone she found the time long while she waited for her visitor. No definite hour had been agreed upon, and she was afraid that the princess would come far too late to suit her eager longing. Still she had not liked to urge too much upon her.

Martha had ordered heaps of flowers to make her room and the little boudoir which adjoined it look attractive; and she took Harold in to inspect them before he went away. He rushed through hurriedly, said everything was charming, gave her a hasty kiss, and was gone.

She stood at the window, which looked upon the Place de la Madeleine, and waited a long time, thinking deeply. The flower-market below was unusually rich, as the day was warm and springlike; and it presently occurred to her that among the glowing masses of bloom exposed to view there were some varieties of flowers which she did not have. She therefore determined to fill up a part of the time of waiting by going down to get some of these. Hastily putting on her hat, she ran down the winding stairway, crossed the open space, and was soon threading her way among the flower-stalls under the shadow of the beautiful great church. She kept her eye on the entrance to her apartment-house, however; and as she knew the princess’s carriage and livery, she felt that there was no danger of failing to see her friend, should she happen to arrive during her brief absence.

The princess, however, did not come in her carriage, or, rather, she sent it away after having crossed the thronged streets of the Place de la Concorde, and, wrapped in her dark cloak, she walked quickly along with the foot-passengers until she reached the house of which she was in search. Then she slipped quietly in, and mounted the steps to the third story.

Her ring was answered by a man-servant,

“‘I BEG YOUR PARDON,’ HE SAID AGAIN.”

who explained that his young mistress had just gone down to the flower-market for a moment, and who ushered her into the large salon to wait.

Scarcely was she seated there when the bell rang again, and the servant opened the door to admit Harold. He had forgotten an important paper, and had come back for it in great haste. He knew that it was his part to avoid the princess in case she should have arrived; but concluding that she would, of course, be with Martha in her own rooms, he came directly into the salon, which was the nearest way of reaching his own apartment.

When he had entered, and the door was closed behind him, he took two or three steps forward, and then stopped as if petrified in his place.

The princess had risen to her feet, and stood confronting him, her face as pale and agitated as his own.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, taking off his hat mechanically; “did you, perhaps, wish to see me?”

“No,” she answered; “I wished to see your sister. She has gone across to the flower-market.”

Her eyes had fallen under his, and she felt that she was trembling as she stood in front of him and answered his questions as mechanically as a stupid child.

“I beg your pardon,” he said again; and he seemed to grow paler still as he stood there irresolute.

“Do you wish to see my sister alone?” he then said. “I don’t understand. Do you wish me to stay or to go?”

“I wish you to go,” she said, rallying a little as the thought occurred to her that Martha might return. “Your sister is expecting me. I came with the understanding that you were to be away.”

A light broke over him, but it cast a sudden shadow on his face.

“You are, then, the princess of whom she has spoken to me,” he said. “I beg your pardon.”

“I am Sophia Rutledge,” she said. “Martha believes me to be a princess, and I let her think it. Some one in the atelier told her so. What will you tell her now?”

“Exactly what you wish.”

“Say nothing. Let her keep her delusion. Her friendship is dear to me; I do not wish it turned to hate.”

“AMONG THE FLOWER STALLS.”

“I shall say nothing,” he said.

They both stood silent there a moment, looking away from each other. Then the woman, feeling her knees grow weak and trembling under her, sank back into her seat; and the man, urged by some impulse of self-protection which demanded that he should fly, had bowed and left the room before she had quite recovered from the momentary dizziness which had possessed her as she fell into her chair. She heard the front door close behind him presently, and knew that he was gone. Then she felt that she must brace herself to meet Martha calmly.

When the young girl, a few moments later, came in with her load of flowers, and smilingly uttered her apologies and surprise at having missed her, her friend’s senses seemed somehow to return, and she was able to answer calmly.

It seemed to Martha that the beautiful princess looked ill, and she was tenderly anxious about her; but she little suspected that during those few moments of her absence Sonia and her old love had been face to face, or, more marvelous still, that Harold had seen again the woman who had been his wife.

Theimpression left upon the mind of Sonia by that meeting with Harold was an intensely disturbing one. Even the stirrings of old feeling, and the memories of past pleasures and pains, which the sight of him had recalled, were less strong in her than a certain feeling of humiliation. She felt that she had been overcome by so great a weakness that she must have made a self-betrayal of which it nearly maddened her to think. Knowing how completely she had been thrown off her guard by this totally unexpected meeting, she felt that every emotion of her heart, which she herself was so conscious of, had been laid bare to him, and she could not rest for the torment of that thought. Her hours with Martha were therefore disturbed and unsatisfactory to them both; and when, soon after the mid-day meal, Martha asked her if she would like to drive, she accepted the relief of that idea with alacrity, only stipulating that they should not go to the crowded Bois.

Martha ordered the carriage, and they drove about for an hour or two, stopping several times to go in and look at churches which they had often seen, but never entered. In some of these vespers were in progress, and they paid their sous for seats near the door, and sat down for a few moments; but the music played too dangerously upon Sonia’s overwrought feelings, and she hurried her friend away.

In one or two of the smaller churches there were only silent kneeling figures here and there, and the two women walked about, looking at the mixture of dignified antiquity and tawdry decoration on every side, and reading the tablets all about the approach to the chancel, erected as thank-offerings to Mary and Joseph for favors granted. In spite of her inward perturbation, Sonia could not help smiling at the economy of words on some of these. One or two had merely, “Merci, Joseph,” or “Merci, Marie et Joseph,” while the more elaborate ones recorded the thanks of the giver of the tablet for a favor received—the restoration of a beloved child from illness, the conversion of an erring son, the rescue of ahusband from shipwreck, and even the miraculous intervention of Mary and Joseph to restore to health a little boy who had been gored by a bull. The very ignorance of it was touching to the two women, and the conviction that it was in each of these poor hearts a reaching upward kept them from feeling any scorn.

As they returned to their carriage, Martha, who during the recent scene had been furtively watching her friend’s face, now saw upon it an expression which she was at a loss to account for. Was it, she wondered, religious devotion, stirred by the associations of the church, which made the lovely face beside her look so passionately tense with feeling? For the first time it occurred to her to wonder what her friend’s religion was.

“Are you a Catholic, Sonia?” she said.

The answer came impulsively:

“No, I am not a Catholic. It is easier to say what I am not than what I am—except that, before and beyond all, I am a miserable woman.”

As these words escaped her the lack of self-control of which they gave proof was so alarming to her that she begged her friend to take her home at once, saying that she was reallynot well, and must be alone to rest. Martha felt chilled and hurt. It was all so disappointing, and she seemed so completely put at a distance. The day which she had looked forward to with such eager joy had turned out dreary and sad. There was nothing to do, however, but to drive her friend back to her apartment.

When they got there, Sonia turned and kissed her warmly, but said nothing; and Martha drove home, feeling lonely and perplexed.

She did not expect to see the princess at the atelier next morning; but to her amazement, when she got there quite early herself, the beautiful, lithe figure was already before the easel, hard at work. There was, moreover, an air of strength and self-reliance about her which offered the greatest contrast to her manner of the day before.

As Martha came into the room, Sonia, who was one of the quiet group around the model—a thin child who twitched and wriggled and could not keep still for two consecutive minutes—waved her a welcome with a little flourish of her brush, and gave her a bright, decided nod. It was too late for Martha toget a position near her, so talk was impossible until the midday recess; but that gesture, glance, and bow of the head were enough of themselves to put new spirit into the girl, and she found her place, and fell to work, going ahead with more vim than she had been able to command for a long time.

When rest-time came the two friends showed their canvases to each other, and both of them could see the improvement in their work. Feeling much encouraged, they went off to the butcher’s shop, selected their chops, and while waiting for them to be cooked, sat at their little table in thecrémerie, and talked.

At first they spoke only of their atelier work and Etienne’s criticisms and suggestions; but when that was pretty much talked out for the moment, Sonia, with a sudden change of manner, said abruptly:

“I want to atone to you for the gruesome mood that I was in when I went to see you yesterday. If you’ll invite me again, I will be different—and, oh, by the way, I’ve got over that foolish idea that I had about not meeting your brother. If it would give you any pleasure, I don’t in the least object. It would certainly be very silly to let him spoilthis beautiful chance of our being together, as it would if I refused to meet him.”

Martha looked at her in surprise. She had so entirely made up her mind that the powers had decreed that these two beings should not meet that Sonia’s words rather disconcerted her.

“Oh, are you not pleased?” said the latter, disappointedly. “I thought it would delight you.”

“So it does,” said Martha, quickly; “but, to be perfectly frank, I had so entirely accepted the idea that there might be some unknown danger in a meeting between you two that I had given it up; and now that the likelihood of it comes again, some sense of danger comes with it. You both seem such tremendous forces—in my eyes, at least,—that it is not like any ordinary acquaintanceship. It is very foolish, though; for even two locomotives may rush toward each other without danger, if each is solid on its own track, leading to its different destination. And surely no harm is done when they come very close, and exchange signals of friendliness, and then part, and go their opposite ways.”

“Perfectly sage and true! Most wiselyspoken!” said Sonia. “So you are reconciled now, are you? What weathercocks we women are! I am sure I may say it of you as well as of myself, contrasting your former eagerness with your present reluctance for this meeting. Well, I suppose it’s a part of our nature, and I don’t know that men are so very different.”

“Harold is different,” said Martha.

“Oh, no doubtheis quite, quite the immaculate,” said her friend, lightly; and then, with a sudden change, she added in tones of extreme earnestness:

“Martha, you have never told him one word about me—have you? Nothing, I mean, of what I have told you or let you see concerning myself. All that was and must remain sacred between you and me.”

“Not a word, not a syllable!” cried Martha. “How could you even ask? He knows of you only as my atelier friend, and that you are a Russian princess, and he knows of my visits to you, and my love and admiration for you; but not one word of what your confidence has taken me into about yourself personally. I told him how little I knew or cared to know about you—that you were a young and beautiful widow, whose past history was wholly unknown to me. What you have let me see of the writing which that history has made upon your heart was a sacred confidence which no power could ever draw out of me.”

“I knew it, dear. I never doubted it. Don’t defend yourself, as if I had distrusted you. It is because I do trust you that I consent to meet your brother. I would certainly not willingly make the acquaintance of any man who could possibly be supposed to know as much of my heart and its weaknesses as I have revealed to you.”

“And when will you come to me again?” said Martha, allowing herself to feel unchecked the joy which the prospect before her stirred within her heart.

“I will dine with you to-morrow, if you like,” said Sonia, with an air of decision.

It was an intense surprise to Harold when Martha told him that the princess was to dine with her next evening. He at once proposed to go out and leave themtête-à-tête, but his wonder increased when he was told that the princess had avowed her willingness to meet him. After hearing that, there was but one thing for him to do. This he saw plainly;but at the same time he realized that a more difficult ordeal could not possibly be put before him. What could be her object in a course so extraordinary, and what could be the feeling in her heart to make such a course possible?

He had believed her to be deeply moved, as no sensitive woman could fail to be, by their unexpected meeting of the day before; but that she should deliberately wish to repeat the meeting looked like the most heartless caprice. She had always been capricious, daring, and impetuous, and had loved to do unusual and exciting things; but that he could excuse as a part of her character and individuality. Heartless he had never had occasion to think her. Even her sudden recoil from him and repudiation of their marriage he believed to be the result of some commanding quality of her fine nature, which he could not help reverencing, even though he did not comprehend it.

The courtship of Harold Keene and Sophia Rutledge had been very short, and their wedding sudden. He had met the young English girl in London near the close of the season; had seen her first in her court-dress, at her presentation; and had afterward spent ten days with her at a country house. Their mutual attraction had been a current which had swept everything before it; and when it had to be decided whether or not she should go on a voyage to Japan with her aunt, as had been planned,—a prospect which would separate them for months to come,—they took things into their own hands, and were married at short notice. The parents of Miss Rutledge were both dead. Her father, an Englishman, had married a Russian; and it was her mother’s sister with whom she was supposed to live, though she had spent most of her grownup years, and all of her childhood, in England. Her aunt was now a widow and a feverishly enthusiastic traveler, and the girl had looked forward with some pleasure to the long travels ahead of them. Her sudden marriage to the young American, introduced to her by some common friends, changed her life absolutely; but Harold was determined that she should realize at least one of her ardent dreams of travel, and take a journey up the Nile. Soon after their marriage they had set out on this journey, and the history of its rapturous beginning and miserable ending was known only to themselves.

In this way it had happened that Harold’s wife had never been seen by his family, and hehad even declined to send them a photograph of her. He said he disliked photographs, and none could ever give a fair representation of his beautiful wife. He wrote Martha that she must do her best to restrain her impatience, as they were to come at once to America at the end of their honeymoon on the Nile, and to make their home there, while he settled down to work.

Instead of this, however, came the brief announcement of their separation, which almost broke Martha’s heart. She had put aside any natural feeling of deprivation and pain, to throw herself, heart and soul, into the delight of Harold’s romantic marriage, and as the young couple dreamed their way up the old Nile, she dreamed it with them. It is probable that few people in the world get the intense joy out of their personal experiences of love that this ardent and impassioned girl derived from the mere imagination of her brother’s happiness. The blow that followed it was therefore very keen and deep. The courage and complete reserve which her brother had shown in the matter had given her strength to bear it; but, in spite of that, a permanent shadow had been cast upon her life.

As Soniagot out of her carriage before the house in the Place de la Madeleine, and mounted the steps with her maid, her heart was beating violently, but she had never been stronger in the sense of complete self-possession. She knew that a difficult ordeal was before her, but she had no fear that her spirit would falter. It was only necessary for her to remember her former weakness, and how she had paled and cowered before Harold, to make her securer in her defiant resolution with every pulse-beat.

At the door of the apartment she dismissed her maid, and, dropping the train of her heavy dress, swept into the little ante-chamber, regally tall and self-collected, to the admiration of the servants, who thought her every inch a princess.

A door opposite opened, and Martha appeared in a pretty evening gown and led her friend into the salon.

Near the table, holding the “Figaro” in his hands, and bending his eyes upon its columns, sat Harold. His severe evening dress, his grave, dark face, with its close-trimmed, pointed beard, and his straight, smooth hair, with its definite part, all spoke of composure, deliberation, and repose.

He rose to his feet, laid down the paper, and stood in his place, waiting. His sister’s guest had taken off her lace hood and thrown open her cloak, between the parted folds of which appeared a rich evening dress. She came forward, moving lightly in her heavy garments, and when Martha, with a fluttering heart, which made her manner somewhat excited and confused, said, looking from one to the other, “My brother, Mr. Keene—the Princess Mannernorff,” she looked him full in the face with what Martha thought a rather haughty look, and gave him a somewhat ceremonious bow.

Harold met her gaze with unflinching eyes, and bowed in his turn with an air which Martha thought unnecessarily formal and distant. After all she had said to each about the other, it disappointed her that their meeting should be so absolutely without cordiality. Sheasked her friend if she would come into her room to lay aside her wraps; but the latter declined, and threw her cloak and hood upon a chair before Harold had time to offer his assistance.

She was dressed in a plain gown of thick yellow satin, with trimmings of brown fur and creamy lace. A diamond arrow pierced the mass of her rich brown hair, and a great clasp of many-colored jewels in an antique setting held the folds of her gown at the waist. She wore no other ornaments, and her beautiful arms and hands were without bracelets or rings. She did not seat herself, but opened a fan, and stood waving it softly as she looked down at Martha from her greater height. The introduction had, of course, been in French, and the conversation continued in that language.

In strong contrast to her glowing brilliancy of color Harold was very pale as he stood with his shoulders braced against the mantel, and talked to her. He was, however, quite as collected as she.

Presently she began to wonder dimly if he were not more so; for underneath her assured calm of manner there was a wild excitementof which she was intensely aware, and all the force of her will was set upon the effort of concealing it from her companions.

She did not wish Martha to know that she was excited; and to have this quiet man in front of her get even a suspicion that she was not fully as composed as he appeared to be, was a thought that she could not endure.

She began to talk about the atelier where she and Martha had met and made friends, and she gave an amusing description of her first encounter with Etienne when she had gone there to enter her name as a pupil.

“It was my first venture into the Bohemia of the Latin Quarter,” she said; “and I felt brave, but self-protective, when I reached the place and went in, with my maid, to investigate. The cloak-room was empty, and when I got to the atelier, and walked around the great piece of sail-cloth which turned its dirty and undecorated side toward me, I saw a fat little old man, in carpet slippers, and a dirty, besmeared linen blouse, and black skull-cap, washing brushes in some soft soap contained in an old lobster-can. ‘I wish to see M. Etienne,’ I said rather haughtily; and to my great indignation he answered, still dabbingand flattening out his brushes in their lather of soap, ‘What do you want with him?’ My maid quite jumped with fright, and I, wishing to show my courage, said severely, ‘That is what does not concern you.’ Instead of showing the self-abasement which I thought my rebuke merited, he said amiably, still rubbing his brushes round and round: ‘But yes, it does; for I’m the man you are looking for. What will you have?’ I was so honestly discomfited that he kindly came to the rescue, and, overlooking my blunder, began to talk business. I have heard since that the mistake which I made had been so frequently made before that I suppose he scarcely noticed it.”

As she ceased speaking, the readiness with which Martha took advantage of the pause to move toward the dining-room suddenly made her aware that dinner must have been announced,—how long ago she could not tell,—and that her garrulous speech and gesticulation had prevented her from hearing it. Her back was toward the door; but how excited she must have been, and appeared, not to have been aware of the announcement! Her face flushed, and she bit her lip with vexation.

Martha looked at her brother, supposingthat he would offer his arm to their guest. Instead of doing so, however, he merely stood aside and waited for the two ladies to go into the dining-room before him. In doing this, Sonia passed very near him; and with a feeling of defiance in her breast she looked straight at him.

He did not meet her gaze, however; for his own eyes were gravely lowered and hid behind a pair of heavy lids, the curves and lashes of which were startlingly familiar to her.

In the lull which the formalities of the moment occasioned, it was painfully borne in on Sonia that she had been too talkative. Her recent rapid speech smote annoyingly on her ears; and when she recalled the fact that she had done all the talking, and must have made an appearance of almost vulgar chattiness, she felt humiliated and indignant. Was she exposing her inward excitement to this quiet man, who was now giving some low-toned instructions to the butler with a self-possession which she suddenly envied? Feeling hurt and angry, she fell into utter silence.

A constraint had fallen upon the party which was even more marked than that which

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