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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Princess Sonia, by Julia Magruder
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: The Princess Sonia
+
+Author: Julia Magruder
+
+Illustrator: Charles Dana Gibson
+
+Release Date: July 13, 2020 [EBook #62637]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINCESS SONIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D A Alexander, Chuck Greif and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          THE PRINCESS SONIA
+
+[Illustration: “THE BEAUTIFUL YOUNG WOMAN ... HAD STEPPED BACK FROM HER
+                        EASEL.” (SEE PAGE 3.)]
+
+
+
+
+                          THE PRINCESS SONIA
+
+                                  BY
+
+                            JULIA MAGRUDER
+
+                            [Illustration]
+
+                         WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+                          CHARLES DANA GIBSON
+
+
+                            [Illustration]
+
+
+                               NEW YORK
+                            THE CENTURY CO.
+                                 1895
+
+
+
+
+                          Copyright, 1895, by
+                            THE CENTURY CO.
+
+
+                          THE DE VINNE PRESS.
+
+
+
+
+                             TO GENEVIEVE
+
+
+
+
+                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+“THE BEAUTIFUL YOUNG WOMAN ... HAD
+STEPPED BACK FROM HER EASEL”                               _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                             FACING PAGE
+
+“A LITTLE AMERICAN CHATTERBOX”                                         6
+
+“A TALL OLD MAN”                                                      16
+
+“THE PRINCESS WAS VERY TALL”                                          20
+
+“‘IT WILL BE QUITE SAFE, I SEE’”                                      31
+
+“‘AH, I HAVE MADE A MISTAKE, I SEE’”                            PAGE  37
+
+“‘ALICE HAS A FINE VOICE’”                                            39
+
+“IN THE AMERICAN COLONY”                                              43
+
+“HER HEAD IN ITS LARGE PLUMED HAT”                                    50
+
+“‘IS IT YOU, MARTHA?’”                                                58
+
+“‘OH, I AM SO, SO SORRY’”                                             60
+
+“THE MAN WHO STOOD WAITING TO GIVE THE
+BRIDE”                                                                76
+
+“‘I KNEW IT WAS ANGUISH TO YOU’”                                PAGE  92
+
+“AS SHE HAD SEEN HER ONCE BEFORE”                                     93
+
+“‘OH, SONIA, WERE YOU EVER REALLY AS HAPPY
+AS THAT?’”                                                            98
+
+“‘I BEG YOUR PARDON,’ HE SAID AGAIN”                                 104
+
+“AMONG THE FLOWER-STALLS”                                            106
+
+“SONIA PASSED VERY NEAR HIM”                                         124
+
+“SHE PUT ON A LONG CLOAK”                                            196
+
+
+
+
+THE PRINCESS SONIA
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+MARTHA KEENE had been at work for several months in Etienne’s atelier,
+in the Latin quarter of Paris, and although her appearance would have
+led one to believe her frail in health, she had never missed a
+working-day, and always occupied a good position well in view of the
+model, because she always came among the earliest to secure it. Her work
+was far from brilliant, and Etienne had noticed her very little at
+first. If he did so more of late, it was her ability to stick which had
+won her this favor. So many students had come and gone, rousing his
+hopes only to disappoint them, that it had got to be rather a comfort to
+the little old man to be sure of one earnest worker always in her place;
+and while he could not say that her work was good, it was certainly not
+bad.
+
+Recently he had told Martha this several times. “Not bad” was about the
+highest praise that most of Etienne’s pupils got from him; and when the
+young American girl heard it for the first time applied to her work, she
+experienced what was perhaps one of the most thrilling sensations of her
+life.
+
+It was followed by another thrilling sensation; for, as she looked up
+from the canvas which the master had thus commended, she met the
+beautiful eyes of the princess, turned upon her with a congratulatory
+smile.
+
+It was almost too much for Martha. Her heart thumped so that her
+breathing became rapid and a little difficult. Instead of answering the
+princess’s smile, a frown contracted her forehead; for she was afraid
+that she was going to lose her self-control, and she needed a stern
+effort not to do so. Martha had a heart which was made for worshiping.
+Etienne and the princess were two of the people that she worshiped, and
+there was a third.
+
+When Etienne had passed on, after smudging one part of her drawing with
+his thumb until it was a dirty blur, and scratching another part with
+ruthless streaks of soft charcoal, she remembered she had received his
+first words of encouragement rather coldly, and had made the same sort
+of return for the princess’s smile. This plunged her from a state of
+delight into one of wretchedness. She looked toward the master with some
+hope of making amends; but he was too absorbed in his next criticism,
+and it was only too evident that her chance was gone. Then she glanced
+at the princess, to receive the same impression from that quarter. The
+beautiful young woman on whom her eyes rested had stepped back from her
+easel, and with her head turned sidewise, and her eyelids drawn up, was
+looking at her picture. She held a brush in one hand, with the fingers
+delicately poised, and in the other her palette, laid with brilliant
+dabs of color. Her lips were pursed critically, and her whole attitude
+and expression showed such absorption in her work that Martha felt it
+would be absurd to imagine that she or her behavior could have any part
+in that beautiful lady’s consciousness.
+
+As usual, when Martha allowed herself to look at the princess, she
+forgot everything else. She had long ago had to make it a rule to place
+her easel so that she would be turned away from her enchantress while
+she was working; otherwise she could see and think only of her. At the
+present moment she was completely fascinated by the tall, strong figure,
+so firmly poised, with one foot advanced, and her body thrown backward
+from the slender waist, where a belt of old silver confined the folds of
+her red silk shirt-waist above the sweep of her skirt of dark green
+serge. This was her ordinary working-rig; and as she wore no apron, as
+most of the other students did, it was more or less streaked with paint.
+Martha herself wore her calico apron religiously, and was always neatly
+clothed beneath it; but she would have protested utterly against seeing
+her neighbor in an apron. It would have looked so unprincesslike! She
+was very tall and straight, this princess, and “Serene Highness” seemed
+to Martha to be written on every inch of her.
+
+There was not much sociability among the students in the atelier. They
+came from many different countries, and spoke many different tongues;
+and they were such a mixture of aristocrats and plebeians--some were so
+afraid of patronizing and others of being patronized,--that the
+conditions generally were such as were opposed to much mixing. Talking
+was forbidden during work-hours, except the little absolutely necessary
+whispering; and in the intermission at noon the princess always went
+away for lunch, and sometimes did not return. Martha, too, went to her
+mother’s apartment for the midday meal, though nothing ever prevented
+her from returning. Some of the students had chums, with whom they
+chatted glibly in the cloak-room; but as a rule, these intimacies had
+been formed outside.
+
+Martha Keene was a girl who would never have made the first advance
+toward an acquaintance with any one; for, although she had passed her
+twentieth year, she was incorrigibly shy. This reserve of manner was so
+evident that it discouraged advances from others. She knew this and
+regretted it, but could not help it.
+
+It had pleased Martha very much when, on a single occasion, this wall of
+isolation which she had built around herself had been broken through by
+a little American chatterbox, who had rattled away to her for ten
+minutes one day as she was waiting for her carriage in the cloak-room.
+This had been soon after her entrance at Etienne’s, and her voluble
+country-woman had vanished from the horizon the next day; but in that
+one talk she had got almost all the knowledge of the atelier which she
+possessed.
+
+Her informant had told her that the students were not supposed to
+inquire about one another at all, the ideal of the atelier being a place
+where high and low alike could lay aside their disabilities and get the
+benefits of the common workshop. She added that there had been several
+personages of importance studying there since she herself had been a
+student, but that she had always heard of it from the outside, and they
+had generally left before she had identified them. “I spotted the
+princess, though,” she had said. “As soon as I heard that there was a
+Russian princess studying here, I picked her out. Do you know which one
+she is?” Martha had answered, “The lady in the red blouse”--a guess at
+once confirmed. “Isn’t she stunning?” her companion had gone on; “I’m
+dying to speak to her! If she were not a princess, I’d have done it long
+ago. I can’t go the Russian; but no doubt she speaks every language.
+Russians always do.” At this point of the conversation the lady herself
+had come into the cloak-room. A neat French maid who was
+
+[Illustration: “A LITTLE AMERICAN CHATTERBOX.”]
+
+in waiting had come forward, and held out her lady’s wrap, a magnificent
+sable thing, in which the beautiful creature had quickly infolded
+herself, and left the room, the two girls meanwhile making a tremendous
+effort to cover their breathless interest by an air of unconsciousness.
+
+Ever since that day--indeed, even before it--Martha had been a silent
+worshiper at the shrine of the princess. She had a passionate love of
+beauty, and her heart, for all her grave and shy exterior, was packed as
+full of romance as it could hold. The discovery that this beautiful
+being was a princess--and a Russian princess, of all others--was meet
+food for this appetite for the romantic; and she dreamed by the hour
+about this young woman’s life, and wondered what it had been and was to
+be. She knew she could not be many years older than herself, and she
+wondered, with burning interest, whether she was or was not married.
+Sometimes she would hold to one opinion for days, and then something--a
+mere turn of expression, perhaps--would convert her to the opposite one.
+She wanted her to be unmarried, so that she might be free to construct
+from her imagination a beautiful future for her; and yet she dreaded to
+find out that she was married. There was certainly a look about the
+princess which contradicted Martha’s ideal of her as the possessor of a
+fair, unwritten life-page. Martha had watched her hands to see if she
+wore a wedding-ring; but those extraordinarily beautiful hands were
+either loaded down with jeweled gauds of antique workmanship or else
+quite ringless. Still, many married women were careless about wearing
+their wedding-rings, a thing which Martha herself could not comprehend;
+but she felt that this wonderful creature was removed as far as possible
+from her in both actuality and ideas.
+
+Martha had heard the sound of the princess’s voice only once or twice,
+and on those occasions she had spoken French with what seemed to the
+American girl an absolutely perfect accent. Once she had been near
+enough to hear a little talk between the princess and Etienne, as he was
+criticizing the former’s work with rather more humanness, Martha
+thought, than he showed to the students generally; and once or twice
+when the princess had been placed near the model’s little retiring-room,
+Martha had had the joy of hearing her divinity give the summons, in the
+usual atelier jargon, “C’est l’heure!” It seemed to the girl a most
+lovable act of condescension on the part of her Serene Highness.
+
+One day (it was the day after Etienne had told her that her drawing was
+“not bad,” and the princess had smiled at her) Martha was working away,
+when she became aware that an easel was being pushed into the unoccupied
+space at her right hand. She had known that some one would soon take
+possession of this place, and she did not even look round to see who it
+was. Her whole attention was bent on making Etienne see that his
+encouragement had yielded good fruit, even though she had made no verbal
+acknowledgment of it. She went on drawing, with intense concentration,
+until, weary at last, she put down her charcoal, and stood resting her
+arms, with her hands on her hips. As she finished her scrutiny of her
+work, and looked around, she started to discover that it was the
+princess who was seated at the easel next her own, and was looking full
+at her. As Martha, confused and delighted, encountered that gaze, the
+beautiful lady’s lips parted in a friendly smile, and she whispered
+gently,
+
+“Bon jour.”
+
+Martha crimsoned with pleasure as she returned the greeting, and then
+both fell to work again. The princess was painting, laying on her color
+in a broad and daring style that almost frightened her neighbor. Martha
+watched her furtively while she crumbled her bread, and pretended to be
+erasing and touching up certain points in her picture. It was a
+bewildering delight to her to stand so close to the princess and see her
+at work, and she was agreeably aware that the princess was also aware of
+her, and perhaps even pleased at their being together.
+
+When the time came for the model to rest, and the quiet of the room was
+a little relieved by the whispered talk that sprang up among the
+students as they waited, Martha felt that the princess had inclined
+toward her a little, and was looking at her work. She put down as
+childish the impulse that rushed up in her to cover the picture from
+sight, or to say how bad she knew it was, and she stood very still and
+very much embarrassed until the princess said again, in that exquisite
+utterance of French subtleties,
+
+“C’est bien difficile, n’est-ce pas?”
+
+Martha answered her somehow--she never knew what.
+
+When the model came back, and they began to work again, she felt that
+she had become part of a wonderful experience. She had never seen the
+princess talking to any one else, and, amazing and undeserved as the
+tribute was, she could not be mistaken in thinking that the lovely lady
+wished to know her, and perhaps to allow her the dear privilege of such
+intercourse as their atelier life permitted. She never expected it to go
+beyond that; but that was far more than anything she had imagined.
+
+Across one corner of her canvas Martha’s name was scrawled in full, and
+she knew that the princess must have seen it. She looked to see if there
+was any signature upon the princess’s picture, and, as if interpreting
+her thought, her neighbor, with a brilliant smile, dipped her brush in
+vermilion, and wrote in a bold, strong hand the word “Sonia.” This name
+(which Martha did not know to be the Russian abbreviation of Sophia)
+seemed to the girl very odd and beautiful, and peculiarly appropriate to
+its possessor.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Martha said nothing to her mother and sisters of her encounter with the
+princess. She had a way of locking very close in her heart her most
+personal and sacred feelings, and all that related to the princess was
+sacred to her now. During her earlier years she had so often been
+laughed at for an enthusiast that she had learned to keep back what she
+felt most strongly; and for that very reason, perhaps, the intensity of
+her feelings grew greater as she grew older. The enthusiasm of her life
+was for her only brother, whom she worshiped with a blind idolatry of
+the extent of which even he was unaware. There had been one or two other
+divinities in her horizon, always second to Harold; but at this period
+of her life she was suffering from a sense of disappointment in these
+as, one after the other, they had come short of her ardent expectations.
+She was now, therefore, in the exact state of mind to take on a new
+object of worship. This the princess had become.
+
+It was not surprising that Martha’s ideal had been so repeatedly
+unrealized, for it was a difficult one. She had suffered acutely from
+her former disappointments, and had even resolved never to pin her faith
+and hope on another woman. But the princess was not to be resisted.
+Martha felt that even if her goddess never spoke to her again, she was
+worthy of all adoration.
+
+As the young girl drove through the streets of Paris in the early
+morning of the day following her brief interview with the princess, her
+heart was very happy.
+
+In appearance Martha was small and rather plain; and no one would have
+noticed her, perhaps, but for the concentration of expression on her
+face as she looked out of the carriage window on her way to her atelier
+in the Latin Quarter. The people abroad at that hour were not of a class
+to pay much attention to such a look on a girl’s face. The little army
+of street-cleaners, occupying their brief hour with busy industry to
+produce the beautiful effect of gay cleanliness which the world enjoyed
+later in the day, had no time to notice Martha, and she was as unaware
+of them. Even the ice on the figures in the fountains of the Place de la
+Concorde, which she generally admired in passing, she did not so much as
+see to-day. The “cold sea-maidens” wore an unusually beautiful veil of
+mist, made by the freezing spray, and Martha might have got an
+impression for some future picture if she had studied it with the early
+sunlight on it.
+
+But she was thinking only of the princess as she drove along and crossed
+the bridge and entered old Paris. Here, too, all was familiar, for
+Martha had taken this drive daily for months, and there was nothing to
+disturb her preoccupation until she reached the Invalides, where her
+hero-worshiping soul never failed to offer a passing tribute of awe to
+the ashes of Napoleon.
+
+As she turned into a cross street farther on, a little funeral
+procession met her. This sight, too, was familiar; but no wont and usage
+could keep Martha from being deeply moved as often as she witnessed the
+pitiful little ceremonial which attends the burial of the very poor in
+Paris.
+
+It is usually in the early morning that these funerals occur, as there
+seems to be a demand upon the poor to give up to the more prosperous
+even the space in the streets which they, with their dead, lay claim to
+for so short a time. This was a child’s funeral, or, rather, it was the
+funeral of two children. There was neither hearse nor carriage. Each
+little coffin was borne upon a wretched bier carried by rough and shabby
+men, who appeared cross and reluctant in their miserable, faded
+trappings of mourning. Looking carefully, Martha discovered that there
+was a separate family of mourners to each little bier; and as the whole
+procession was under the command of a tall old man, who held his
+shoulders very erect, as if to atone for a limp in one leg, she
+comprehended that this bedizened old undertaker, with the ragged crape
+on his cocked hat and the dirty bunches of black and white ribbons on
+the end of his long staff of office, had consolidated his duties,
+probably at a slight and very welcome discount to his poor patrons, and
+was burying the dead of two families at once. Directly after him came
+the bearers of the light coffin, and just behind it were five little
+children, four girls and a boy, walking abreast, and dressed in
+mourning. This mourning consisted of hastily fashioned aprons made of
+dull black calico, and so carelessly fitted that the many-colored
+undergarments of the children showed plainly at every opening. The
+children were regular little steps, the boy being the youngest; and cold
+as it was, they were all bareheaded. Each carried a sprig of yellow
+bloom, which resembled, if indeed it was not, the mustard-flower. This
+they held very stiffly and correctly in their right hands, and they
+walked with an air of the utmost decorum. Behind them came their father
+and mother, the former looking more apathetic than sad, and the latter
+carrying with some complacency the dignity of a dingy and draggled crape
+veil, in frank contrast to a blue-and-green plaid dress. She was taller
+than her husband, and leaned awkwardly upon his arm, keeping no time
+whatever to his shuffling gait. Then came the other coffin and the
+second group of mourners, who were evidently not so fashionable as the
+first; for they made no effort at mourning, and walked after their
+little dead one with nothing like a flower, and in their common
+working-clothes.
+
+While Martha’s carriage was passing this
+
+[Illustration: “A TALL OLD MAN.”]
+
+procession, she saw on the other side of them, going in the same
+direction with her, a smart turnout in which a gentleman was driving,
+with a groom behind. The horses shone like satin, and their harness
+jingled and glittered in the morning sunshine. The gentleman and his
+servant were dressed with a brilliant effect of care and detail. The
+former was smoking a cigarette, and had a scarlet flower in his coat.
+
+As the little funeral procession passed this carriage, the young swell
+who was driving bared his head, with its smoothly parted blond hair,
+remaining uncovered until the procession had passed, his servant
+imitating his act. This little tribute of homage to death which the
+French take the pains to perform always touched and pleased Martha. She
+thought of the absurdity of this man’s uncovering his head to that
+pauper baby alive; but the mystery of death imparted to it a majesty
+which the equal mystery of life could not. This child was a partaker of
+the knowledge of the unknown, into which Napoleon, lying near by, had
+also entered, and was, with him, divided from the merely mortal.
+
+Martha thought of this as she watched the showy carriage, which had
+relaxed its speed for a moment, whirling rapidly away toward the
+outskirts of the city. She wondered where that handsome,
+prosperous-looking, well-bred man was going at this early hour. Probably
+to fight a duel, she thought, in her romantic way! Perhaps in a few
+hours’ time he might be as dead as the poor little baby; and perhaps
+there was some one who loved and adored him as she did Harold!
+
+These were the ideas which filled her mind as she reached the atelier,
+there to learn that there was a disappointment about the model, who had
+failed to come.
+
+She was about to take off her wraps, and go to work on some drawings
+from casts, when an exquisite voice behind her said suddenly, “Pardon,
+mademoiselle,” and she turned to meet the gaze of the princess fixed
+upon her with a smile of lovely friendliness.
+
+“What are you going to do?” she said in that faultless French which
+Martha had already admired.
+
+For a moment the girl was quite overcome at such unexpected
+graciousness. Then she managed to say in her own faulty though perfectly
+fluent French, that she had thought she would go on and do what she
+could without a model.
+
+“It is so dull, after having that glorious Antonio to pose for one,”
+said the princess. “I am not in the humor, and my carriage is gone.
+Yours, perhaps, is gone also. Do you feel like drawing to-day? Or do
+you, perhaps, feel more like calling a cab, and taking a drive with me?
+I should like it. Will you go?”
+
+Martha crimsoned with pleasure as she accepted the invitation. There was
+no mistaking her delight at the suggestion.
+
+“You are very good to go,” said the other, “especially as you know
+nothing of me, I suppose.”
+
+“I know only that you are the princess--the Russian princess,” said
+Martha.
+
+Her companion frowned slightly, and, Martha thought, looked a little
+annoyed. She reflected that she ought not, perhaps, to have told her
+that her secret had been discovered.
+
+The little frown soon passed, however, and the princess smiled genially
+as she said:
+
+“I am living incognito in Paris to study painting, and I do not go into
+the world. When I am not working I am often bored, and I frequently long
+for companionship. You make me very grateful by giving me yours this
+morning.”
+
+The princess was very tall--so tall that when Martha walked at her side
+she had to turn her face upward to speak to her. They walked along in
+the most natural companionship until they reached a cab-stand nearby,
+and Martha thought her divinity more worshipful than ever as she stood
+wrapped in her long cloak, with a large, black-plumed hat crowning her
+beautiful head, and said some words of gentle pity about the poor old,
+weak-kneed cab-horses drawn up in a line.
+
+When they had entered a cab, and were seated side by side, the princess
+said abruptly:
+
+“If you had not heard something of me, I should have told you nothing.
+Why should we ask questions about each other? We meet to-day, art
+students in a Paris atelier, and we shall part to-morrow. What have we
+to do with formalities? Of you I know that you are a young American
+studying painting here, and I think, in a way, sympathetic to me. I am
+content to know that, and no more, of you. Do you feel the same about
+me?”
+
+Martha replied eagerly in the affirmative, and in five minutes the two
+had come to a perfect understanding. The girl felt her awe at being in
+“the presence” gradually fading away,
+
+[Illustration: “THE PRINCESS WAS VERY TALL.”]
+
+as this winning young woman sat and talked with her on a footing of
+friendly equality. It was after a short silence between them that the
+princess said:
+
+“There are one or two things that it will be necessary for you to
+know--that is, if you like me well enough to come to see me, as I hope
+you do. I am living in the Rue Presbourg, and when you come to see me,
+you are to ask for the apartment of the Princess Mannernorff. You will
+come, will you not?”
+
+“Oh, if you will only let me, it will be my greatest happiness!” said
+Martha. “I can’t understand what has made you so good to me!”
+
+“Simply, I like you. It isn’t hard to understand. I’ve noticed you a
+long time, and I’ve liked you more and more. I like your manner; I like
+your face; I like your devotion to your work; and I like your work.”
+
+“My work! My scratching and smudging, you mean! Oh, how _can_ you notice
+it or care for it when you look at yours? Every one must see that
+Etienne knows that you are his best pupil. He does not speak to any one
+as he does to you, and you must know as well as I that it is not because
+you are a princess.”
+
+“Yes, of course; I know that perfectly well. But I fancy that Etienne,
+in his little critical heart, feels that he hasn’t got out of me what he
+looked for at first. At least, I have that idea; and you see I have
+studied enough, compared with you, to be a great deal further ahead of
+you than I am. I have digged and delved for that treasure more than you
+realize. I hope to do something tolerable some day; but I’m not as
+confident about it as I used to be, and I fear Etienne is not, either.
+Oh, I _wish_ I could!”
+
+She said this with such fervor, and followed it by such a wistful sigh,
+that Martha, who had not yet taken in the idea that the princess might
+not be the all-fortunate creature she imagined, felt a sudden protest
+against the thought of her wishing for anything vainly.
+
+“Surely you will!” she said. “I can’t imagine your wanting anything very
+much without getting it.”
+
+The princess laughed, throwing up her chin, and looking at Martha with
+an indulgent smile.
+
+“You can’t?” she exclaimed. “Well, if you take the trouble to continue
+my acquaintance, you will find that I’ve missed pretty much everything
+in life that I very greatly wanted. It is sad, but true.”
+
+Martha did not answer, but she looked as if she would like to speak out
+something that was on her mind, and her companion saw this, and said:
+
+“What is it? Speak! I give you full permission.”
+
+“It was nothing,” said Martha, rather confusedly. “I was wondering about
+you--as, of course, I can’t help doing. I don’t want to be told things,
+however. I would far rather imagine how they are.”
+
+“Very, very sensible. I see that I shall like you more and more. There
+are a few things, however, which it will be well for you to know. For
+instance,”--she paused, with a slight look of reluctance, and then went
+on rapidly,--“no doubt you wonder whether I am married.”
+
+Martha’s eyes confirmed her.
+
+A cloud seemed to have settled with surprising suddenness upon the face
+of the princess. She looked fixedly at the passing prospect outside the
+window as, after a moment of difficult silence, she said almost
+brusquely:
+
+“I am a widow.” Then she turned and looked at Martha. “You will
+understand, for the future,” she went on more naturally, “my wish for
+silence on this subject. I am living temporarily in Paris with my aunt.
+I used to know French society well, but I am out of it now, and I don’t
+regret it. Painting is the only thing I really care for--that, and
+music, and some books; some, but not many. Books give such false ideas
+of life. I think it was what I read in books that led me to expect so
+much. I was not to be convinced but that all the happiness I imagined
+was quite possible; and when it would not come to me, I thought there
+was a force in me which could compel it. As a rule, I’ve given that idea
+up; but there are times even yet when it rises and conquers me. I know
+it is very foolish, and that experience cures one of such feelings, but
+I’m not altogether cured yet, in spite of hard and repeated blows.”
+
+Martha had listened with intense interest, and now, as her companion
+paused, she felt that she ought to volunteer, on her part, some sort of
+sketch of herself and her surroundings.
+
+“I don’t care to tell you anything about myself,” she said, “because
+it’s so uninteresting. My father has been dead a great many years; mama
+is delicate; and we live in Paris so that I may study painting and the
+younger girls may have lessons. We go to America for the summers. My
+brother is the eldest of us, and he lives there. The younger girls are
+pretty, and mama wishes them to go into society and to be admired. She
+used also to wish this for me, but she saw how I hated it, and how
+little chance I had in it, so she lets me alone now, particularly since
+I got Harold to speak to her.”
+
+“Are you sure that she would not disapprove of your friendship with me,
+knowing of me only the little that you are able to tell her?”
+
+“Yes; I’m certain of it. She wouldn’t mind. She knows I never get into
+mischief. I feel perfectly free to do as I choose about this, and I
+don’t mean to mention you to any one--not because there would be any
+objection, but because you are too sacred to me, and if you let me be
+your friend, I can’t share that knowledge and possession with any one.”
+
+Martha was determined to say this, but she did not accomplish it without
+a good deal of hesitation and embarrassment. Her companion looked at her
+with a sort of wondering scrutiny.
+
+“Where do you get that earnest, concentrated nature, I wonder--so
+different from mine!” she said. “Does it go with the American character?
+Your words are very foolish, child; but it is so long since any one has
+held me sacred that I am ridiculously touched by it.”
+
+There was something that looked like rising tears in the beautiful eyes
+of the princess; but a gay little laugh soon banished the shadow from
+both her face and her voice. Suddenly she sat upright and said:
+
+“Suppose you come home with me now! I want you to learn the ways of the
+place, so that you may come and go as you please. Will you come with me
+there to-day?”
+
+Martha agreed at once, and with evident satisfaction the princess leaned
+out of the window, and gave the address to the cabman.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Martha felt herself in a dream of delight as she descended from the cab,
+and, following the princess into the courtyard of a large
+apartment-house in the Rue Presbourg, mounted the stairs at her side.
+
+Their ring was answered by a foreign-looking man-servant, to whom the
+princess spoke in a tongue which Martha recognized as Russian, but of
+which she understood not a word. She saw, however, that it related to
+herself; for the servant, who wore a curious and elaborate livery,
+looked at her and bowed.
+
+“I have been telling him,” explained the princess, “that whenever you
+come you are to be brought at once to my private sitting-room, whether I
+am at home to other people or not. If it should chance that I cannot see
+you,--an unlikely thing, for I generally do what I want, and I shall
+always want to see you,--my maid can bring you word there. You see, I
+am not going to take any risk of having you turned away from my door.”
+
+The antechamber into which they had been admitted was charmingly
+furnished, not at all in the French style; and there was something in
+the whole environment of the princess which commended itself strongly to
+Martha’s artistic taste. Everything that she saw, as she passed along,
+deepened this impression. She followed her companion in excited silence
+through the antechamber, and into the large and sunny salon, where two
+persons were sitting.
+
+One was a little old lady with very white hair, elaborately arranged
+under a queer-looking lace cap fastened with jeweled pins; the other was
+a dark and severely dressed woman, who, Martha at once saw, was a sort
+of companion or maid. As the princess approached, this woman rose and
+courtesied. The old lady looked up, with some surprise in her placid
+face, and immediately laid down her embroidery, and took up a silver
+ear-trumpet, holding out her other hand to the princess.
+
+The latter bent, and kissed the proffered fingers lightly, and then,
+raising her voice a little, uttered several sentences in Russian into
+the trumpet, at the same time indicating Martha in a way that made her
+understand that this was an introduction. The girl also bent, and kissed
+the hand now extended to her, and then the princess led her away.
+
+“My poor aunt is so deaf,” she said, “that it is almost impossible to
+talk to her, and I could not go into any long explanation about you. She
+never interferes with me, however, and no questions will be asked. Come
+now to my own room.”
+
+Martha, following her companion, found herself in a small boudoir
+opening into a bedroom. The door of the latter was open, and the two
+apartments gave an impression which she told herself she could best
+describe by the word lovable. The musical instruments stood open. The
+lounges and chairs seemed to have taken the shapes of their occupants.
+Flowers that looked as if they had been willingly plucked were all about
+in vases. Well-worn volumes and drawing-books were scattered about, and
+some of the princess’s atelier studies were placed against the walls on
+the floor. Martha, who could hardly believe in her good fortune in
+having received even the smallest notice from the princess, was yet
+more bewildered and delighted when the latter crossed the little
+boudoir, and led her into the bedroom.
+
+Here the French maid whom Martha had seen at the atelier sat sewing. She
+stood up, evidently surprised. As she courtesied, and came forward to
+take her lady’s wraps, the latter hastily threw her cloak to her, and
+then, striking her hands together with a quick little clap, said:
+
+“Va-t’en, Félicie!”
+
+The maid smiled. She and her mistress evidently understood each other
+well. Deftly gathering up her work, she left the room, and Martha found
+herself alone with her divinity, in the privacy of her own bedroom. She
+felt quite foolishly happy. Perhaps the princess saw it, for she said,
+with her bewildering smile:
+
+“You like it, do you not? You needn’t explain. I see you do, just as I
+saw that you liked me, without your saying a word. I am so glad.”
+
+“_Like_ you!” said Martha, protestingly. “Oh!”
+
+Then the princess came and stood in front of the young girl, and put her
+arms around
+
+[Illustration: “‘IT WILL BE QUITE SAFE, I SEE.’”]
+
+her neck, clasping her long hands at the back, and looking down at her.
+
+“It will be quite safe, I see,” she said, still smiling, “for me to make
+my confession to you, and own that I was drawn to you in quite an
+extraordinary way. I really did not mean to go so fast, however; and if
+I had stopped to think, I should probably not have proposed to you to
+take this drive with me. But for once I am glad that I did not stop to
+think. My impetuosity is generally my bane in everything. This time I
+feel that it has brought me a blessing. I can prove to you that it is
+not my habit to go out to strangers in this way by the fact that I am so
+friendless. I have no intimate friend in Paris, though I know scores of
+people here. If I like you, and want to see more of you, and you have
+the same feeling toward me, why should we not indulge ourselves? Very
+well! So we will!” and she bent, and kissed Martha on the cheek.
+
+The girl’s heart quivered with joy; but she could find no words in which
+to express it, so she was quite silent. She felt herself very stupid as
+she let the princess take off her wraps and hat, and lead her to a
+seat.
+
+“Now,” said the lovely lady, “as I am one of those people who must be
+comfortable before they can be happy, I am going to put on a loose gown.
+No excuses necessary, I know.”
+
+She disappeared for a moment, and came back in an exquisite garment of
+pale-blue silk with borderings of dark fur. She had seemed to Martha
+very splendid and beautiful before, but now she was so winning, so
+sweet, so adorable, that the young girl felt her whole heart glow with
+delight as, with a long-drawn sigh of ease, the princess threw herself
+on the lounge at her side.
+
+“Now,” she said, as her hand closed on Martha’s, “talk to me.”
+
+Poor Martha! What could she say? Her gratefulness for this unexpected
+confidence and friendliness moved her almost to tears, but she was
+silent.
+
+“Talk to me, Martha,” said the princess, coaxingly. “I may call you
+that, may I not?”
+
+She called it “Mart’a,” with her pretty foreign utterance; and Martha
+thought her homely name had suddenly become adorable. But she could not
+even tell this to the princess. How dull and stupid she was! Her
+consent must have shown itself in her eyes, however, for the princess
+went on:
+
+“I can’t call you Martha unless you call me by my name, too. Will you? I
+have a fancy to hear you say it now. Will you call me by my little
+Russian name--Sonia?”
+
+It was evident that the girl’s silence did not offend her. She must have
+understood its basis, for she said, with an encouraging smile:
+
+“Say it. Say ‘Sonia.’”
+
+“Oh, you are too good to me!” exclaimed Martha. “You spoke of knowing
+that I liked you. I don’t _like_ you--I _love_ you! I don’t _love_
+you--I _adore_ you! O _Sonia_!” and the girl actually slipped from the
+low chair to her knees beside the lounge.
+
+The princess jumped to her feet, and with strong hands lifted Martha to
+hers; then holding both the girl’s hands, and stretching her arms apart
+to their full length, as their two faces were drawn together thus, she
+kissed Martha with affectionate warmth.
+
+“What a dear thing you are!” she said. “How good it is to see some one
+who can really feel! How tired one gets of the _fin-de-siècle_ spirit in
+both women and men! Bless you, my Martha! You have come to be a great
+joy in my life. I feel that we are going to be friends for always--do
+you?”
+
+“Oh, if you will let me! If you will only not be disappointed in me! I
+am afraid to speak, afraid to breathe almost, for fear that you will
+find out that I am only a poor, commonplace little creature, in whom
+your goodness has made you see something which does not exist. Oh, I
+_pray_ I may not disappoint you! And yet how can I dare to hope?”
+
+“Listen, Martha,” said the princess in a matter-of-fact tone, as she
+drew the other down to a seat beside her on the lounge; “let us take
+each other quite simply, and not promise anything. We will just agree to
+be perfectly natural with each other--just to be ourselves. If you
+continue to like me, and I you, it is all right. If not, we shall have
+broken no pledges and done each other no wrong. Now, with that basis to
+go upon, we can both feel natural and satisfied. Only don’t cover up
+your real self to me, for you may be concealing just what I love, and
+pretending what I hate. It is because you are different from others that
+I have been so drawn to you. Now don’t try to be like other people, and
+ruin everything.”
+
+“Oh, I feel I can be myself with you. I feel I can tell you everything
+that is in my heart, and talk of things that I have never been able to
+speak of to others. How beautiful it is! How strange that such a
+relationship between two women can come about here in Paris in this age
+of the world!”
+
+“It could not if we were Parisians; but both of us being foreign to this
+atmosphere, it can. I love your being an American. I felt sure you were
+even before I asked Etienne.”
+
+“And did he tell you? I have always understood that he never answered
+questions about his students.”
+
+“So have I; but I asked him all the same, and he told me who you were. I
+had quite fancied you before, and after that I fancied you still more,
+as I love the ideal of the American, a creature newer from Nature’s
+hands, and nearer to her heart, than we of the Old World; and,
+fortunately or otherwise, I have known too few of your people either to
+confirm or contradict this idea. So now I think I shall go on liking
+you. And how is it with you? Do you think you will not be disappointed
+in me?”
+
+Her beautiful lips widened in a smile of broad amusement that made her
+eyes twinkle. Martha looked at her with a speechless adoration which she
+could not have been so dense as to misunderstand.
+
+“How delightful!” said the princess. “It has been so long since I have
+permitted myself the luxury of a friend that my appetite for one is all
+the keener.”
+
+She had thrown herself back on the lounge, and as Martha sat down by
+her, the princess again took her hand, saying as she did so:
+
+“Now I will tell you two things about myself at the outset of our
+acquaintance: one is that I love to ask questions; the other is that I
+hate to be questioned. Will you remember these facts, and will you be as
+frank with me if I do what you don’t like? I am very nearly certain that
+we shall get on together admirably, for the reason that I know you have
+no vulgar curiosity about me or my affairs. You have sense enough to be
+convinced by one look at my aunt, if there were nothing else, that I am
+respectable. Now I am pretty confident that you have an impulse to talk
+out freely to me, and to answer any questions that I may choose to
+put--all the more so because your general habit is one of strict
+reserve.”
+
+[Illustration: “‘AH, I HAVE MADE A MISTAKE, I SEE.’”]
+
+The princess kept her eye on her companion’s face while she was talking,
+and she could tell by its expression that she had interpreted her
+correctly. She said so, with a little laugh of contentment, and then
+added:
+
+“Tell me about yourself first of all.”
+
+Martha’s countenance fell.
+
+“Ah, I have made a mistake, I see,” said the princess. “We have not come
+to that yet; but we will come to it--you and I. Some of these days you
+will find yourself telling me all those close-locked secrets of your
+heart; and yet even they, I fancy, will relate more to others than to
+yourself. So be it! I can wait. Tell me now about your people--your
+family here in Paris.”
+
+“Well,” began Martha, “there are mama and we four girls--Alice, Marian,
+Florence, and I. Alice is very handsome, and poor mama has had to shift
+over to her and to the younger girls, who also bid fair to be charming,
+all the hopes which she once centered in me. I have been struggled with
+for years, and finally let alone. Mama agrees to my working at my
+painting because she has made up her mind that unless I amount to
+something in that I shall never amount to anything at all; but I don’t
+think she has much hope of me. She is not far from beautiful herself,
+and is accustomed to being admired, and it took her a long time to
+accept my indifference to it. However, it’s quite accepted now; and I
+even think that, with three other girls to be taken into society, she
+finds a certain relief in leaving
+
+[Illustration: “‘ALICE HAS A FINE VOICE.’”]
+
+me out of it. The other girls are studying music and languages. Alice
+has a fine voice.”
+
+“And your father is dead, is he not? Did you not say you had a brother?”
+
+Martha’s face grew quite white with the concentration of mind which this
+thought produced.
+
+“Yes; I have a brother,” she said.
+
+“Forgive me,” said the princess, with swift sympathy. “There is
+evidently some reason why it pains you to speak of your brother. Forget
+that I asked you.”
+
+The blood rushed to Martha’s face as it occurred to her that her
+companion might misunderstand her reluctance to speak on this subject.
+
+“It’s not that I am not proud of him that it is hard for me to speak,”
+she said; “it’s expressly because I am. I made up my mind long ago not
+to talk about Harold. I found I must not, because I could not speak of
+him with any freedom without saying things that people would think no
+merely mortal man deserved. I have worshiped him all my life, and, as
+I’m rather ashamed to own, I’ve had a great many other idols which
+turned out to be made of clay. This one, however, has never proved for
+an instant unworthy of my adoration.”
+
+The princess smiled.
+
+“One would like to get a look at him,” she said. “An absolutely
+faultless being must be interesting to look at.”
+
+“Don’t laugh at me!” cried Martha. “If it were any one but you I could
+not bear it; but I know you would say or do nothing that could hurt me
+really. I don’t wish you to understand that I think Harold faultless. He
+is not. But to one who understands him as I do, his very faults are part
+of his greatness. They all have their seat in something noble, and to
+see how he fights to conquer them is a thing that thrills me. He is now
+off in America hard at work. He has done some quite extraordinary things
+in electricity, and is absorbed in his career. When I am a little older,
+and mama gives me up as a hopeless job for society, I am to go and live
+with Harold, and keep house for him. That is my dream and his.”
+
+“Sooner or later, dear child, you will have to wake from that dream. I
+do not find it as unlikely as you seem to that you will marry; and even
+if you should not, your brother probably will.”
+
+The princess was smiling, but her smile faded at the look of tragic pain
+in her companion’s face. She could see that the young girl had been
+touched in her heart’s tenderest place.
+
+“No,” she said, with that frown of sadness unrelaxed, “he will never
+marry.”
+
+“Forgive me again, dear Martha,” said the princess. “Your brother has
+had some disappointment, about which your heart is as sensitive as his
+own. I see that, and you need tell me no more. It is good that he has
+you to comprehend and sympathize with him. It is good that you have each
+other. If you gave your heart and life to a husband as wholly as you
+have given them to your brother, he would probably break the heart and
+wreck the life, and even the right to dream would be taken from you.
+Living with this brother, whom you love and worship so, whether he
+deserves it or not, you may have many a sweet and joy-giving dream which
+no reality would equal. I wish I could make you see how fortunate you
+are.”
+
+“I care very little for my own happiness,” said Martha, too absorbed to
+realize that she was saying anything that called for comment. “All that
+I care for is to give Harold a little comfort and calm. He can never be
+happy again.”
+
+“He tells you so, dear child, and no doubt he believes it. _I_ tell you
+it will pass. Men do not grieve perpetually for women. I know them
+better than you do.”
+
+“You do not know this man. If you imagine that he is like any other man
+in the world, you are wrong. He could not get over this sorrow and be
+the man that he is. It is simply a thing impossible to him. Not that he
+shows it! It has been two years since it happened, and no doubt every
+one except myself thinks he has recovered. I dare say he wants to have
+it so, and he’s generally cheerful and bright. Even to me he never says
+a word, but I think he knows that I understand. At all events, he knows
+that, though it is the desire of my life to go and live with him, I
+would never do him the wrong to suppose that I could make him happy.”
+
+“He has, then, it would seem, the same ardent temperament as yours. Dear
+me! how odd it would be to see a man like that in this
+
+[Illustration: IN THE AMERICAN COLONY.]
+
+generation! Was this woman very cruel to him that you resent it so?”
+
+“Resent it!” said Martha, dropping her companion’s hand, to clasp her
+own hands together. “Even to you I can’t talk about that. I should
+either cry like a fool or rage like a fury. I know very little about
+what happened, except that she has utterly ruined Harold’s life, and cut
+him off from everything that makes life sweet.”
+
+“You allow yourself to suffer too much for him, perhaps,” the princess
+said. “I am not going to antagonize you at the outset by saying all that
+I might say to you on this subject, but believe me, my little _ingénue_,
+I could give you points about men. I will not do it now, however, and I
+will even show my willingness to spare you by changing the subject. Tell
+me about Alice. Is she really so handsome? Does she go into society?
+Where could one see her?”
+
+“Yes; she goes out a good deal--in the American colony, principally. I
+don’t think there is any doubt that she’s handsome.”
+
+“Then I’m all the more unfortunate in having no acquaintance in the
+American colony. Does she look like you?”
+
+“No; the fact is--” Martha blushed, and was in evident confusion, as she
+went on--“the fact is, I’m considered like Harold. Not really, you know,
+because no one can deny that he’s magnificent; but there’s said to be a
+sort of family likeness.”
+
+“Well, I can believe that, my dear, without absolute insult to your
+brother. Is Alice much admired?”
+
+“Yes, a good deal; but she’s engaged now, and so she is not noticed as
+much as she was.”
+
+“Oh, she’s engaged, is she? And when is she to be married?”
+
+“The day is not fixed, but it will be before long. The trousseau is
+being bought now. Her fiancé is an Italian officer of very good family,
+though not much fortune. Still, Alice is happy, and mama is satisfied,
+and Harold has given his consent. He is coming over to the wedding. Oh,
+if you could see him--and he could see you!”
+
+“His seeing me is wholly unnecessary; but the other part might be
+accomplished. It would be a good idea to give me a card to the wedding
+if it takes place in a church. Then I could see all your people without
+their seeing me, and probably disapproving of our intimacy and breaking
+it up--or else putting it on a footing that would have no comfort in
+it.”
+
+“How _could_ they disapprove?” said Martha, deeply hurt. “How could they
+be anything but honored that I should be noticed at all by a great
+princess like you?”
+
+“Oh, there’s no greatness about this princess, child,” said the other,
+laughing. “Don’t expect to see me going around with a throne to sit on,
+in either a literal or a figurative sense. To you I am only Sonia--a
+fact which you seem to have forgotten, by the way! I wish you’d call me
+Sonia, and stop thinking about the princess. With your American ideas
+it, no doubt, seems much more important than it is. Are you going to
+tell your people about me really or not?”
+
+“No,” said Martha; “I wouldn’t for the world. It may be selfish, but I
+want you all to myself.”
+
+This was perfectly true; but at the same time, ignore it as she might,
+there was a lurking feeling in Martha’s heart that the princess was
+right in imagining that if her mother knew of the friendship that had
+sprung up between the two students at Etienne’s, she might insist upon
+investigating the princess--an indignity which Martha felt that she
+could not endure.
+
+The princess herself seemed pleased at Martha’s evident wish to
+monopolize her; and the two parted at last with the confidence and
+affection of old friends.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+THE days at the atelier had now a new interest for both students, and
+their work was manifestly the better for it. To Martha these days were
+filled with a glorious delight, which seemed to give her all that her
+nature craved; and if it had not been for sad thoughts of her brother
+and his loneliness, she would have felt that she could ask for nothing.
+
+To have the princess painting near her, and to be able to look up and
+see her beautiful figure, with its sinuous grace, posed before her
+easel, and to receive from her now and then a brilliant smile of mutual
+comprehension, was quite enough of personal bliss for Martha Keene.
+
+Martha had an ardent and romantic temperament, but she seemed to be
+capable of satisfying its needs vicariously. There undoubtedly are such
+women, though the like has possibly never existed in the other sex. For
+instance, it was a continual battle with her now to put down the
+temptation, which constantly assailed her, of imagining a meeting, an
+attraction, and finally a union between the brother who realized her
+romantic ideal of man and the friend who realized his complement in
+woman’s form. She knew it was impossible. She knew that Harold would
+never marry; and she even realized that if he could love again, after
+the manner in which he had loved one woman, he would, by that fact,
+compel her to lower her standard either of love or of him.
+
+And yet Martha felt that the meeting and blending of these two lives
+would, if she could have seen it, have satisfied every need of her
+heart. She believed that her pleasure and contentment in looking on at
+such a union as this would give her the greatest joy that could be for
+her--would indeed, in a way, give her the feeling of satisfied love.
+
+It was very hard to put down these imaginings; but she told herself that
+it must be done. Harold’s life and love had been given once, and she
+knew he was right in saying that they were not his to give again; and on
+the princess’s part, no doubt the idea would be a wild suggestion,
+indeed. Martha did not know what rigid laws of etiquette and convention
+might not bind the princess; and condescending as the latter had chosen
+to be with regard to herself, she felt that this beautiful lady would
+never do anything unworthy of her caste. Her husband, whether she had
+loved him or not, had no doubt been a great prince, whose name and title
+the woman on whom he had bestowed them would never consent to debase.
+The thing was hopeless and wrong, of course, and the idea must be put
+away from her. But it was hard to do, with her hero constantly in her
+mind, and her heroine constantly before her eyes.
+
+One day, after an unusually hard morning’s work, the princess invited
+Martha to go home to lunch with her, and to spend the afternoon at the
+Louvre, looking together at the pictures which they had so often enjoyed
+apart.
+
+When they reached the apartment in the Rue Presbourg, the princess was
+informed that her aunt had already finished her second breakfast, which
+she took with the regularity of clockwork, not depending upon the
+comings and goings of the rather erratic person who was the other
+member of the family. This the princess explained lightly, as she led
+the way to the dining-room. The servants by this time all knew Martha;
+and they looked upon her, as the friend of their mistress, with the most
+amiable glances. Not speaking the Russian language, Martha could show
+her good will only by a pleasant smile, in return for the evident
+pleasure which they showed in serving her.
+
+The princess threw her wrap backward over the chair, as she sat at the
+head of the round table, with her slender figure against a background of
+dark sable, and her head, in its large plumed hat, standing out from a
+halo of many-hued old stained-glass in the window behind. Martha,
+sitting opposite, fell into an unconsciously intent scrutiny of her
+face.
+
+It was certainly safe, Martha thought, to call this face beautiful, both
+for feature and character. The eyes were large, dark, brilliant, and
+fervidly suggestive. One wondered what those eyes had seen, were seeing,
+and were capable of discovering for others. The hair was a brilliant,
+waving brown, arranged in a loose mass that was still firm and lovely in
+its outline--hair, as Martha thought, that
+
+[Illustration: “HER HEAD, IN ITS LARGE PLUMED HAT.”]
+
+it must be sweet to touch with fingers and with lips. Also the girl
+thought one might well long to prove by touch whether that white skin
+was as smooth and fine as it looked. The firm, short nose was definitely
+pointed, and tilted upward, slightly lifting with it the short upper
+lip. Her chin was bewitching--at once strong and alluring. The mouth was
+very individual, and, as Martha studied it, she concluded that if she
+could tell why it was so charming, half the charm would be gone. For the
+first time it occurred to her to wonder how old the princess was.
+
+“You are wondering how old I am!” said the princess, almost taking the
+girl’s breath away.
+
+“I never knew anything so strange!” exclaimed Martha. “It was the very
+thought I had in my mind.”
+
+“Certainly, I read it there! I can do that, sometimes, with people who
+are very sympathetic to me. I fancy it would be rather dangerous for
+_you_ to do any very private thinking in my presence. I sometimes read,
+too, without reading aloud. I think I have read some of your thoughts
+lately, without your suspecting it.”
+
+She looked at Martha, over her cup of bouillon, and smiled. Martha felt
+herself blushing, as she wondered if that persistent and dominating
+thought about her brother, which had been so often in her mind of late,
+could have been perceived by this wonderful being. It frightened her so
+that she quickly changed the subject, and the remainder of the meal
+passed in less personal talk.
+
+When they were seated in the princess’s coupé, a little later, driving
+past the Arc de Triomphe, Martha saw her companion turning her head to
+look at it with lingering, earnest eyes.
+
+“I always look at the Arc whenever I can,” she said; “and it always has
+something to say to me. Its expression of strong beauty and repose
+always makes me feel that what is, is right. If I am happy, it makes me
+feel that joy is both good and permanent; and even when in times of
+unhappiness it makes me feel that sadness is permanent, it somehow seems
+to tell me that that too is good. Did you ever stand quite close to it
+and look up?”
+
+“No,” said Martha.
+
+“We must, some day, together. It will give you a new sensation.”
+
+“I always thought that it appeared better at a distance,” said Martha.
+
+“So it does, in a way; but the impression is different. I love it from
+the Place de la Concorde, when the horse-chestnuts are in bloom. Then it
+looks like a magnificent image of beneficence, stretching out two great
+arms to take in all those people, in carriages and on foot, who are
+thronging the Champs-Élysées, its body vague and distant in the clouds.
+That’s a sufficiently fantastic thought for you, if you like; but it is
+one that has comforted me. I love Paris. It is the only city that has
+ever seemed to me to be lovable. Its streets are so gay and clean, and
+the faces of the people one meets, along here at least, are so
+good-humored and intelligent. I love this mixture of fashion and
+ruralness. Look at the swells and the peasants driving side by side!
+Look at those white-aproned men drawing handcarts, that mail-coach
+coming alongside, those old peasants in their covered wagons, and that
+superb mounted policeman with his gorgeous trappings! How friendly and
+at home they all seem! Even that omnibus, with its three white
+Percherons abreast, looks sociable and friendly by the side of the
+_steppeurs_ of the _haute école_. Oh, it’s all very human and charming;
+or is it that you humanize me, and make me feel its charm more than I
+have done for many a day?”
+
+She was still in this delightful humor when they reached the Louvre, and
+made their way at once to pay their homage to the Venus of Milo. They
+did not say much as they looked at her, moving slowly from place to
+place to get the different points of view. Each knew what the other
+felt, and words seemed out of place. Presently the princess said:
+
+“I have a fancy to try an experiment. Let’s name her! What I mean is, if
+that were a real woman, what would you think the name best suited to
+her?”
+
+Martha smiled comprehendingly, and looked at the statue with a gaze of
+deep concentration. This changed, after a moment, into a smile, as she
+said:
+
+“I’ve named her. It’s so absurd, however,” she went on, “to give such a
+name as I’ve chosen to that ancient Greek statue, that I’m almost
+ashamed to tell it.”
+
+“You needn’t be,” said the princess, smiling too; “for I’ve got a name
+about which I have exactly the same feeling. Come; I’ll say mine first.
+It’s Gloriana.”
+
+“And mine is Georgiana! How odd that they should be so much alike!”
+
+“Isn’t it? It’s delightful, though; for it shows that there’s something
+in my theory of names, and that this statue has made almost exactly the
+same impression on us. I’m eager now to name the Winged Victory. Come;
+let’s go and look at her.”
+
+They hurried away to the foot of the wide staircase, where, looking up,
+they saw the magnificent creature with her great wings spread.
+
+After standing before her in silence a few moments, the princess
+exclaimed suddenly:
+
+“Oh, have you named her yet? A _perfect_ name for her has come to me!”
+
+“And to me, too--_perfect_!” said Martha. “How many syllables has
+yours?”
+
+“One.”
+
+“So has mine!” said the other, breathlessly. “Now let’s count three, and
+say the name.”
+
+Simultaneously they said: “One, two, three--_Ruth_!”
+
+Then they looked at each other with an excited delight that the
+passers-by must have thought rather amazing even for two artists
+looking at the Victory.
+
+“It’s the most wonderful thing I ever heard of,” said Martha. “Don’t you
+feel positively creepy?”
+
+“I should think I did! Little cold chills are running all over me. Oh,
+how nice it is that we can think and feel together in this way!”
+
+Her face, as she spoke, was glowingly beautiful; and Martha returned her
+gaze with a look which expressed what no words could possibly have
+done.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+ONE morning the princess did not come to the atelier; and Martha, after
+working along without her for a while, thinking that her friend might
+have been delayed and hoping that she would come later, found her mind
+so preoccupied by the absence of her usual companion that her work would
+not go at all, and at last she concluded to stop trying, and to go to
+look the princess up.
+
+She called a cab, and drove to the apartment in the Rue Presbourg, where
+she was now well known. Even the old concierge, with her shining white
+hair, brilliant black eyes, red cheeks, and bearded upper lip, gave her
+a smile of welcome as she passed through the court; and the princess’s
+servant gave her another as he conducted her at once to his mistress’s
+boudoir.
+
+Here he left her. Martha tapped on the door, and waited. Getting no
+answer, she turned the knob and entered, intending to knock at the
+inner door; but no sooner had she shut herself into the room than she
+became aware, although it was almost wholly darkened, that it was not
+unoccupied.
+
+A stifled sound reached her ears, and she could now make out the figure
+of the princess, lying on the lounge, with her face buried in her hands.
+
+The girl’s heart ached with pity, and she did not know whether to yield
+to her own impulse, and to go forward, or to consult the possible
+preference of her friend, and go back.
+
+While she hesitated, the princess took her hands from her face, and saw
+her. As she did so, she started up, touching her eyes with her
+handkerchief, and clearing her voice to speak.
+
+“Is it you, Martha? Come in, child,” she said. “I have a headache
+to-day, and intended to see no one. I forgot, however, that I had given
+orders that you were always to be the exception. I should not have let
+you see me like this if I had known beforehand; but now that you have
+looked upon your poor friend in this humiliated state, sit down, and
+never mind.”
+
+[Illustration: “‘IS IT YOU, MARTHA?’”]
+
+Martha had come near, and now took the seat beside the lounge, her face
+tragic with sympathy.
+
+“I am so sorry you are ill,” was all that she could say.
+
+“I am not ill, really,” said the princess. She was lying back upon the
+lounge, and fanning her flushed face with her little gossamer
+handkerchief, which Martha could see was limp with tears. “My head does
+ache now, but I brought it on by this wretched crying. It’s all my own
+fault. You did not know that I was such a weakling, did you?” and she
+made an effort to smile.
+
+“Oh, I am so, so sorry!” said Martha, helplessly.
+
+“You needn’t be, dear. Never be sorry for any man or woman who is equal
+to his or her life--and I am equal to mine. One time out of ten it gets
+the better of me, but the nine times I get the better of it. This mood
+will surely pass. Indeed, it is passing now. You have helped me already.
+It has been very long indeed since I have found or wanted human help,
+and it takes me by surprise.”
+
+Martha saw that she was preparing to lead the talk away from her recent
+tears and their cause, and she passionately wished that her friend
+should feel that she longed to enter into her sorrow with her, if it
+could be allowed her; so she said impulsively:
+
+“I don’t suppose you feel like telling me your trouble; but oh, I wish
+you could!”
+
+“I do feel like it, you darling child! I could talk to you about it
+better than to any one on earth; but there are some things one cannot
+speak of even to one’s own heart. That is the trouble now. If I were to
+let myself indulge freely in imaginings and regrets, I should satisfy
+the want of the moment, but it would undo me utterly. My great
+temptation is regret, and I must be strong enough not to regret.”
+
+“Oh, how sad life is!” cried Martha. “I have always thought that you at
+least ought to be happy. I gave you the name of ‘The Happy Princess,’
+out of Tennyson. It has seemed to me from the first that you were a
+creature who had it in you to command happiness.”
+
+“Ah, dear child, if you could only know how helpless I am there! The
+best thing that is in me is the power to command courage. That I can,
+and for the most part do. While that is so, I shall not complain.”
+
+[Illustration: “‘OH, I AM SO, SO SORRY.’”]
+
+“Then you are really unhappy? Oh!” said Martha, drawing herself up with
+an impulsive movement.
+
+“I know what that fervent exclamation means as well as if you had put it
+into words,” said the princess. “You are wishing that there were some
+way in which, by sacrificing yourself, you could purchase happiness for
+me.”
+
+Martha, startled at the correctness of this guess, could say nothing in
+denial.
+
+“I knew it,” said the princess, reading her face. “I have not the
+faintest doubt that you would do it; and--now I am going to knock over
+some of your idealizing of me--there have been moments in my life when
+my greed for happiness has consumed me so that I believe I would have
+been willing to take it, and to let another pay the price. That’s a base
+thing for a woman to say of herself, but so true it is that I thank God
+I was never tempted when those moods were on me. Something not wholly
+different from that panting after an impossible joy was upon me this
+morning. Shall I never get the better of it utterly? _Can_ one overcome
+it? Did _you_ never have it, Martha? To me joy is impossible, but it is
+not so to you. Don’t you ever long for it? I will speak to you quite
+openly, Martha, and tell you this--when I say joy, I mean love. _Is_
+there a woman’s heart that does not long for that? Be as honest with me
+as I have been with you, and tell me.”
+
+“I will try,” said Martha. “I will do my best to be perfectly truthful.
+I _do_ long for happiness; but--this may seem strange to you, and you
+may even think that I am pretending to be better or more unselfish than
+others--”
+
+“That I _never_ will! I _know_ that isn’t so. Go on.”
+
+“I was going to say that the craving of my heart seems somehow to be
+impersonal. I want happiness intensely, but the way in which I want it
+is to see the beings whom I love best have it. Now there are two
+creatures in the world whom I love supremely--my brother and you. You
+know that this is so. If I could see both of you happy, in the manner
+and degree that I want, I believe that I could then be perfectly happy,
+too. I believe all the needs of my own heart could be answered in that
+way; and indeed I almost think that my greed for joy is as great as
+yours at times. It has strained my heart almost to bursting, in Harold’s
+case, and I feel now almost the same about you. I have never spoken of
+this to any one; indeed, I was never fully aware of it, I think, until I
+put it into words now. It must seem quite incredible to you.”
+
+“Not in the least. I believe it utterly, or rather it’s a stronger thing
+than belief with me. I feel that it is true. I admire you for it, and
+all the more because it is so different from me. I want happiness and
+love for myself--every ounce of flesh, every drop of blood in me longs
+for it as well as every aspiration of my soul. It is _self_ that I am
+thinking of when I get like this--my own power to enjoy, and also--oh,
+God _knows_ that this is true!--and also the power to give joy to
+another. Martha, I will tell you something,” she said, with a sudden
+change of tone, dropping her voice, and leaning forward to take both of
+Martha’s hands in hers as she spoke, with her eyes fixed intently on the
+girl’s. “I have known this joy. I have loved supremely, and been loved.
+You have never tasted that cup of rapture as I have; but then you have
+never known, as I have, the anguish of that renunciation. Which of us is
+the fortunate one? If you knew how I suffer you would probably say that
+it is you; but if, on the other hand, you knew what ecstasy I have had,
+I think that you might decide differently. Oh, if God would give me one
+more hour of it, I think I would be content! One more hour, to take it
+to the full, knowing that I must, after that, come back to what I suffer
+now! I think those sixty joy-absorbing minutes would make up to me for
+everything. But to have it _never again_!”
+
+She broke off, and, hiding her face in her hands, turned away, and lay
+for some moments quite silent and still. She was not crying--Martha
+could see that; and when she presently turned, and looked at the young
+girl, holding out both her hands to her, although there was no smile on
+her face, it showed that she had conquered her dark mood, and was strong
+again.
+
+It was a very gentle sort of strength, however, that was not too
+self-sufficient to feel pleasure in the words and looks and touches of
+quiet sympathy which Martha gave her now. They sat there, hand in hand,
+for a long time; and presently the princess said, with her own
+beautiful smile:
+
+“You have done me a world of good, Martha. My headache is gone, and also
+its cause. Sometimes, do you know,--I’m going to let you see just how
+weak I am,--sometimes I succumb for days to a mood like this. Nobody
+knows that tears have anything to do with the headaches that I suffer
+from--at least nobody but Félicie, and she gives no information. My aunt
+loves me dearly, but is no more acquainted with the real _me_ than if I
+were a stranger; and yet she adores me--perhaps for that reason. I tell
+her nothing, because the feelings that I have are quite outside her
+comprehension, while the headaches are quite within it. She recommends
+various powders and pellets, and is constantly getting new prescriptions
+for me. She says my headaches are of a very obstinate type, and I agree
+with her. To show you how completely you’ve cured me,” she added, rising
+to her feet, with an entire change of tone, “I am going to work this
+afternoon. You will stay and take your lunch with me, and then we’ll be
+there in time for the second model’s pose.”
+
+“I can’t stay,” said Martha, rising too; “but I will meet you there
+promptly. I am keeping my cab below, so that I may be back at the
+atelier by the time the carriage comes for me. You know how very quiet I
+am keeping my little escapades with you.”
+
+“Oh, to be sure!” exclaimed the other, smiling. “I had forgotten the
+necessity of that precaution. What _would_ ‘mama and the girls’ say? I
+think I shall write them an anonymous letter, saying that if madame had
+been under the impression that her eldest daughter devoted herself
+wholly to the pursuit of art during the hours of her absence from home,
+it might have surprised her had she seen the aforesaid young lady this
+morning come out of the atelier, call a cab, give a number, go to a
+distant apartment (where she was evidently well known to the concierge,
+who passed her on to a servant in Russian livery, who as evidently knew
+her well), enter, by a special passage, a certain room, where she
+remained shut in for a long time, emerging finally in great haste to
+drive rapidly in the cab, which she had kept waiting, back to the
+atelier in time to meet her own carriage, and come innocently home to
+join the family circle at lunch! Couldn’t I make out a case? And what
+_would_ the mother and the little sisters say?”
+
+Martha, too, laughed at the picture; but in spite of some discomfiture
+of feeling to which it gave rise, she had no idea of changing her
+tactics. The very thought of her mother’s going to work to investigate
+the princess, and ascertain if she were a proper friend for her
+daughter, smote the girl to the heart, and she resolved to guard her
+secret more carefully than ever. She determined that she would ease her
+conscience for the deception by confessing everything to her brother
+when he came. This would make it all right.
+
+As Martha drove back to the atelier, after an affectionate _au revoir_
+to the princess, she was conscious that something was rankling in her
+mind. When she came to search for the ground of this feeling, she found
+it to exist in the confession of love which the princess had made. This
+knowledge caused Martha to realize that she had not even yet succeeded
+in putting from her the imaginings by which she had connected her
+brother and her friend. Before knowing the princess she had always
+cherished the belief that her brother would sink below her ideal of him
+if he ever loved a second time. Lately, however, she had imagined the
+possibility of his telling her, after knowing the princess, that the old
+love was not the perfect one he had imagined it; and she could fancy
+herself forgiving him for loving a second time, with the princess as his
+apology. It had even seemed to her lately so monstrously wrong and cruel
+that Harold’s life should be wantonly wrecked that she was now prepared
+to accept a good deal more than would once have seemed possible, in
+order to see it mended.
+
+Martha, for all her demure appearance, had something that was more or
+less savage and lawless in her nature, especially where Harold was
+concerned; and the same feeling, in a lesser degree, dominated her in
+regard to the princess. She had long ago admitted to herself the fact
+that Harold had missed his chance of happiness in love; but it was as
+painful as it was unexpected to her to find that the princess too had
+loved before. She had known that she had been married, but with very
+little difficulty she had constructed for herself a theory of that
+marriage in which the princess had played the part of an innocent victim
+to circumstance. For instance, she might have been married by her
+parents in early youth to a man perhaps far older than herself, whom she
+had never loved, and for whose death she could not have grieved much.
+
+It was a surprise to Martha now to find how entirely she had let this
+utterly unfounded idea take possession of her. The words of the princess
+this morning had shattered it to atoms, and in spite of herself she felt
+strangely heavy-hearted.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+AFTER the morning on which Martha had been by accident a witness of the
+princess’s self-betrayal, there seemed nothing lacking to the complete
+understanding of the two friends, and their intimacy was now stronger
+and closer than ever. It was not practicable for Martha to visit the
+princess very often, as she was compelled to take the time for these
+visits out of her atelier hours, and both women were too earnest in
+their work not to begrudge this. Lately they had fallen into the custom
+of the generality of the students, and went for their midday meal to the
+_crèmerie_ in the neighborhood, after they had visited first the
+butcher’s shop, and selected their own mutton-chop or bit of beefsteak;
+then they had it cooked according to their directions. This, with fresh
+rolls and baked apples and milk, made an excellent meal, sometimes
+augmented by potato salad. Martha had been initiated into these
+mysteries by an American girl whose acquaintance she had made through
+the latter’s having once offered to help her on with her “josie,” a word
+which had established an easy footing between them at once.
+
+Martha never exchanged more than a passing remark with the other
+students, partly because she had, in the beginning, built a sort of
+barrier around her by her shyness, and, recently, because she felt that
+her intimacy with the princess, who knew none of the others, set her
+more than ever apart.
+
+One morning Martha came to the atelier rather late, and showed,
+moreover, a certain excitement in her movements and expression which she
+accounted for at lunch-time by telling the princess that her sister’s
+wedding had been hurried up, and was to take place almost immediately.
+
+There were several good reasons for this; one being that it suited much
+better the plans of the bridegroom elect, and another that Mrs. Keene,
+being in rather delicate health, had been urged by her physicians to
+leave Paris. So, as soon as the wedding was over, she was to go south
+with the younger girls and their governess; and Martha, who rebelled
+against being taken from her beloved painting, had a beautiful plan of
+getting her brother to stay awhile in Paris with her in their mother’s
+apartment. This she confided to the princess with breathless delight,
+saying that she had written to Harold about it, and told him to cable
+her if he were willing. Her friend could see that, with her usual
+license of imagination, Martha had been making all sorts of plans in
+connection with this scheme, and she more than suspected that some of
+these concerned herself.
+
+“My dear Martha,” she said, with a penetrating look into her friend’s
+eager eyes, “give it up at once, on the spot, if you have been making
+any plans to introduce your brother to me!”
+
+“Oh, _why_?” said Martha, in tones of the keenest regret.
+
+“Because, my dear, it is out of the question. If you knew how sick to
+death I am of men, you would not ask it. Please, if you love me, don’t
+speak of it again.”
+
+This, of course, was final, and Martha was compelled to bear her
+disappointment with what patience she could summon. She got a promise
+from the princess, however, that she would come to the wedding, which
+was to take place in the American church. At least this would give her
+the satisfaction of feeling in the future that her friend had seen her
+brother, and she hoped she might contrive in some way that the latter
+should see the princess, since it was now decreed that the intercourse
+could go no further.
+
+Great as Martha’s disappointment was, she forced herself to recognize
+the fact that, as things were, it might be all for the best that these
+two should not meet. She could imagine but one result of that meeting,
+and that, under existing circumstances, might be disastrous to both.
+Neither of them had fully confided in her, but both of them had told her
+plainly that a second love was the thing which they most strongly
+repudiated. In Harold’s case, she knew that this feeling was one that
+his conscience, no less than his heart, ordained; and in the case of the
+princess, she somehow felt that it was the same.
+
+The princess, for some reason, did not tell Martha what a notable
+exception to her rule she made in going to this wedding. The fact was,
+she had never been to any wedding since her own; and it may have been
+that fact which accounted for the state of intense excitement which she
+was in as she drove alone in her carriage through the streets of Paris
+to the church in the Avenue de l’Alma.
+
+As she got out, and instructed her coachman where to wait, this inward
+excitement showed in every rapid movement and word. Afterward, when she
+entered the church, and walked, with a definiteness of manner which
+would seem to have indicated a prearranged plan, straight down the
+left-hand aisle to the choir-stalls, her face was flushed and her eyes
+were brilliant. It was early, and few people had come as yet.
+
+The princess wore a long, dark cloak, which concealed her figure, and on
+her large hat, which hid the outline of her head, a rather thick Russian
+veil was fastened, so that her features were scarcely distinguishable.
+
+There was a shaded corner near the organ, behind the chorister-stalls,
+that was quite screened from the congregation, and so situated as to be
+almost out of view from the chancel also, if one chose to protect one’s
+self behind the great pillar that stood there. The day was dark and
+cloudy, but the chancel was brilliant with lighted candles. The
+princess with firm confidence walked to this place, and took her seat.
+She did not seem to care whether the church was filling up or not. She
+scarcely noticed when some people came and took the seats near her. In
+these moments she was so lost in thoughts and reminiscences that the
+furious beating of her heart almost suffocated her.
+
+When, from just behind her, a great organ-note swelled forth, and filled
+the church with tremulous vibrations, the princess gave a little
+fluttered start. No one was near enough to observe this, however, or to
+see the crouching back into her seat which followed it. The music seemed
+to heighten her emotion, and she trembled visibly. She quite lost count
+of time, and did not know how long it was before she saw a clergyman
+enter the chancel and stand there, waiting. Then, as two officers in
+rich uniforms came and took their places in front of him, the sonorous
+chords of the old familiar Mendelssohn march swelled from the organ, and
+the heart within her seemed to stop and sink. It was the sound and
+influence to which, in perfect joy, she had walked to her own wedding.
+
+She knew that the bridal procession was coming up the aisle, but she did
+not turn her head to get a view into the church. She felt the people
+about her rise to their feet, but she sat still. Her trembling limbs
+would not have held her up; but she did not even know that she was
+trembling. She knew only that she was waiting--that all her heart and
+all her soul were wrapped in a bewildering suspense until the coming of
+what was very near her now. They passed close to her, the girls in their
+white dresses, and the officers in their glittering uniforms, and stood
+in divided ranks, leaving the space between them clear.
+
+Into this space, directly in front of the clergyman, there now advanced
+a woman covered with a cloud of gauzy tulle. She leaned upon the arm of
+the only man in the party who was not in uniform.
+
+It was on this figure that the princess fastened her eyes, never once
+removing them until the short ceremony had come to an end. The bride was
+a shapeless blur. The bridesmaids were a billowy cloud. The officers
+were mere dazzles of color and gold lace. One object there was that cut
+its way into her consciousness with acute distinctness--the dark-clad,
+
+[Illustration: “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, in the 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.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+MRS. KEENE’S apartment 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. How _could_ mama!”
+
+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. But when 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 pride in 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.
+_Her_ changing 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 want _you_ to
+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 to break my heart outright, don’t
+talk to me about being happy. I want happiness for _you: I’ve_ got 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.
+
+[Illustration: “‘I KNEW IT WAS ANGUISH TO YOU.’”]
+
+[Illustration: “AS SHE HAD SEEN HER ONCE BEFORE.”]
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+THE day 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
+such ideal 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 of
+_camaraderie_, 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’t_ you 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 and forever. 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 uttering her 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
+
+[Illustration: “‘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, _let_ me 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 had changed. 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 thing to 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.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+A FEW days 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 with _me_!” 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,
+
+[Illustration: “‘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.”
+
+[Illustration: “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.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+THE impression 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 a husband 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 really not 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 to get 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
+the _crémerie_, 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
+spoil this 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 wisely spoken!” 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 doubt _he_ is 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 them _tête-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 he had 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.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+AS SONIA got 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. She asked 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 excitement of
+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 dabbing and
+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, supposing that 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
+
+[Illustration: “SONIA PASSED VERY NEAR HIM.”]
+
+usually characterizes the first moments at a formal table. Sonia felt
+that she would bite her tongue in two before she would speak again, and
+Martha had a helpless sense that things were somehow going wrong. It was
+Harold who broke the silence.
+
+“Martha,” he said, “the princess will say, perhaps, what wine she
+prefers.”
+
+Sonia felt as if she hated him. He knew all her little aversions and
+preferences as well as she knew them herself, and had ordered her
+dinners and wines times out of number. How could he pretend that he had
+never seen her before, with so much success as almost to impose upon
+herself? Was it really a dream? Which was the dream, the past or the
+present? How could he seem to be so indifferent, unless he really felt
+so? Perhaps he was. That might be the simple explanation of what seemed
+mysterious.
+
+As these thoughts hurried through her mind while she made a pretense of
+eating her soup, it suddenly occurred to her that her present complete
+silence might look as odd as her former garrulousness. Harold, while
+eating his dinner with apparent relish, was doing all the talking now,
+but with how different a manner from hers! How quiet he was, and what
+well-bred pauses interspersed his talk, and how agreeably he deferred to
+Martha and herself, and brought them into it! She had come to this
+dinner with the proudest confidence of being able to conform the
+conditions about her absolutely to her will, and yet, in spite of
+herself, she seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper every moment into
+the slough of regret and self-reproach which she had come here to get
+out of.
+
+As the meal proceeded, her self-dissatisfaction increased, and
+presently, with a feeling almost of panic, she realized that her conduct
+must be so peculiar as to cause surprise to Martha, if not to her
+brother. What interpretation would be put upon the sudden dumbness that
+possessed her? A very obvious one occurred to her, which it filled her
+with anger to think of, and she felt she must talk, must recover
+herself, must do away with the impression of her present stupidity.
+
+Martha, groping about for an agreeable topic, had mentioned the young
+bridal couple, and a telegram which she had just received from them, and
+that led her to some remarks about the wedding.
+
+“Oh, it was a beautiful wedding--I was there!” said Sonia, in a
+breathless endeavor to come naturally into the talk.
+
+As she spoke she met Harold’s eyes, and thought that she discovered just
+a shade of surprise in them. He only bowed, however, in assent to her
+rather demonstrative expression of praise. Sonia felt at once that her
+attendance at any wedding, particularly that one, was a thing that
+grated on him. His presence there was, of course, a necessity; but the
+odious taste of her going, out of pure curiosity, as it would appear to
+him, to see this marriage, must add one more item to the evidence which
+was rolling up against her. She was experiencing what was new to her--a
+sensation of total inadequacy to the social demands of her surroundings.
+
+“Harold, do you think you can possibly stay for the opening of the
+Salon?” said Martha, presently, in another effort to make the
+conversation go. This was a topic which she thought Sonia should be
+interested in. Apparently she was right.
+
+“I’m going to exhibit a picture,” said Sonia, quickly.
+
+Sonia had thought only of recovering herself by talking naturally, and
+this speech, as well as the last one, she regretted bitterly the moment
+she had uttered it. Not only did it seem in bad taste to speak of her
+exhibiting, when Martha was so far removed from such an honor, but it
+might also make the impression that she thought that the fact might be
+an inducement for him to stay for the Salon. It was maddening to have
+him look at her again with polite interest, and express his
+congratulations upon a fact of which she now felt heartily ashamed. How
+he must despise her! What should she do?
+
+“I wonder,” said Martha, at this point, in her clear, low voice, “if
+Harold has ever seen that striking picture that hangs in your room,
+Sonia. It is Watts’s ‘Hope,’ Harold. Do you know it?”
+
+Harold answered that he did not, and Sonia’s sense of helpless misery
+increased as she perceived that Martha was going to describe it. She bit
+her tongue to keep from crying out as Martha proceeded to give the
+following description:
+
+“It is a woman’s figure lying on the globe in an attitude of fatigue and
+dejection. The scantily draped form is beautiful, but not
+youthful-looking, and the face, partly concealed by a bandage over the
+eyes, is also beautiful, but lined with care and sorrow. In her hands
+she holds an old lyre with every string broken except one. This one
+string, frayed and worn and lax, she is striking with her thin, weak
+fingers, and she is bending her dulled ears to try to catch the note.
+When Sonia first showed it to me, and said that it was one of her
+favorite pictures, I did not understand it. We have all been taught at
+Etienne’s such a fine contempt for English art that I was disposed to
+treat it lightly. I soon saw, however, the wonderful, tragic meaning in
+the picture, and I quite long to see the original.”
+
+This was too much. Sonia felt that if anything else occurred to hold her
+up to contempt in this man’s eyes, she should give up, and burst into
+tears. Her courage was fast oozing to the last ebb; and with a feeling
+of actual desperation she looked involuntarily into the face of her
+opposite neighbor, and met his eyes fixed on her with a strong gaze that
+in an instant supported and calmed her. She did not quite read its
+meaning, but she felt that there was kindness for her in it, and that
+there was no contempt. A look from him had given her courage many a
+time in the past, and it was availing now. She felt suddenly
+self-possessed and strong; but the remainder of the meal was a confused
+blur in her memory, and she was devoutly thankful when her maid came to
+fetch her home.
+
+Martha thought it a little strange that her brother did not go down to
+put their guest into her carriage; but she reflected that he was far
+more familiar with the rules of foreign society than she was, and she
+concluded that he must be acting in accordance with them.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+MARTHA felt herself genuinely surprised, puzzled, and disappointed at
+the result of the meeting which she had worked so hard to bring about.
+Nothing could be more incontestably evident than that her brother and
+her friend had not proved sympathetic--did not “hit it off.” What was
+the reason? How could both of them be so perfectly congenial to her and
+still uncongenial to each other? It was a painful mystery, to which she
+tried in vain to find the key.
+
+Next morning Sonia did not come to the atelier at her usual time, and
+Martha painted on without her in pronounced despondency of spirit. When
+she had quite given the princess up, she looked around, and, to her
+delight, saw Sonia placing her easel, and preparing to go to work, a
+short distance off. She thought her friend looked a little pale and ill;
+but when she managed presently to catch her eye, she received an
+affectionate smile from her, which gave her a certain amount of
+reassurance.
+
+When the interval for lunch came, and they went off together to the
+_crémerie_, Martha waited for her friend to introduce the subject so
+near to her heart, and was surprised when she led the talk in an
+entirely different direction.
+
+It had been much the same with Harold after their guest had left the
+evening before. Beyond a rather preoccupied and spiritless assent to all
+she had to say about the beauty of the princess, he had seemed more or
+less indifferent on the subject, and had plunged with zest into the
+discussion of other things. Martha could not altogether wonder at this,
+for she had never seen her adored friend appear to so little advantage.
+Her brother, however, had seemed to her charming, though not, of course,
+at his very best, and she expected that Sonia would at least say that he
+was handsome and agreeable. When it appeared that she was going to say
+nothing at all, Martha boldly took the initiative, and asked:
+
+“What do you think of Harold?”
+
+“Think of him? Oh, I think he’s very good-looking, though less like his
+sister than I could wish.”
+
+“Oh, Sonia, don’t tease me! If I thought you meant that, I should give
+you up, both as an artist and a friend. But, really, did you like him or
+not?”
+
+“I could hardly say ‘not’ to that heartfelt appeal,” said Sonia,
+smiling; “and, indeed, I don’t feel inclined to. I liked him, of course.
+But, my dear, I told you only the truth when I said I was sick to death
+of men. Etienne is the solitary exception. I like him for the reason
+that he did say a decent word to me this morning, and I really believe
+he thinks I am beginning to daub with promise.”
+
+Martha saw that there was no hope, so with profound disappointment she
+gave up, and said no more.
+
+As for Sonia herself, never had she been in a state of such abject
+self-abasement. She had donned her gorgeous raiment and gone off to that
+dinner in exultant self-confidence, and had never doubted her ability to
+conform circumstances to her will, and to make exactly the impression
+upon Harold which she desired him to have. What, then, was the secret of
+her complete and humiliating failure? She asked herself this question,
+and immediately tried to shut fast her ears to the answer which her
+heart gave. She had confidently believed, up to this hour of her life,
+that her woman’s pride was strong enough for any demands which she could
+possibly make upon it; but it had failed her. She had passed a sleepless
+night after that dinner, and it took tremendous effort to go to her work
+next morning. She did it only because she knew that if she did not the
+news of her absence would reach Harold, and she could not endure the
+thought of the motive to which he might attribute it. Perhaps the most
+poignant recollection which rankled in Sonia’s mind was the thought
+that, in her helplessness, she had made an appeal to him by that look
+which he had answered with such strength-giving kindness. It had enabled
+her to get through with the remaining time; but now, as she thought of
+it, she felt that he had taken it as an appeal of weakness which he had
+been strong and merciful enough to respond to.
+
+This thought, whenever it recurred, made her cheeks tingle.
+
+And what could she do to right herself? She dared not make any more
+self-confident plans, only to have them end in fresh humiliation. She
+now felt afraid of seeing Harold, and it seemed to her that the utmost
+that was in her power was to be regular and faithful to her work, in the
+hope that the report of such a sensible course would reach his ears.
+
+Martha made a weak little effort to get her friend to come to her again,
+but to this she received such a faint response that she let the subject
+drop. All sorts of conjectures were busy in her mind to account for the
+present phenomena. She even wondered if she and her brother, with their
+American education and ideas, could have done anything which offered an
+affront to the state and dignity of their princess-guest. But this could
+hardly be. Sonia was as friendly and affectionate as ever, though she
+now seemed to wish to confine their intercourse to the limits of the
+atelier, and did not even ask her to come to her own apartments. So
+Martha was free to give up all her spare time to her brother, and they
+had numerous trips to the theater and opera; but somehow the _solitude à
+deux_ with her beloved Harold had not the zest in it which she had
+counted on beforehand. He was certainly changed, this brother of hers.
+He had grown more serious, and was given to long silences. She even
+thought that it was an effort to him to be so much in her society, and
+that he would perhaps prefer to be alone. This was a hard blow to
+Martha, but she bore it without making a sign, and was glad of the
+excuse which her work gave her to be much away from him. He also had
+important business in Paris, and often worked for many hours at a time,
+which, as Martha told herself, accounted for his rather careworn
+expression. She even thought he was getting thin, and begged him not to
+stay on because of her, as she would far rather give up her lessons and
+join her mother than be a trouble and injury to him. This, however, he
+would not listen to, and he even declared it his intention to stay in
+Paris until after the opening of the Salon, now only a week or so off.
+
+Day after day went by, and although Sonia and Martha were together at
+least one half of their conscious time, they seemed to have in some way
+gone backward instead of forward in their intimacy. They still lunched
+together daily, and had ample opportunity for talk; but there seemed now
+a dearth of topics such as they had never been aware of before, and a
+sense of distance had arisen which made it hard for Martha to realize
+the familiarity and nearness which had marked their former intercourse.
+
+One afternoon, when the work had been going more than usually well, and
+the model had been more than usually interesting, Sonia and Martha,
+their easels side by side, had lingered in the atelier after every one
+else had gone. It was very agreeable to be able to paint and talk
+together, and the princess, whose carriage had been announced some time
+before, gladly agreed to wait with Martha until hers should arrive.
+
+While they were talking, a knock was heard at the door, and as all rules
+were relaxed at this hour, both women called out, “_Entrez!_”
+
+The door was opened, and around the corner of the old sail-cloth screen
+the tall figure of Harold appeared. The day was raw and chilly, and he
+wore a fur-lined coat with its large fur collar drawn close around his
+throat, and carried his high hat and his stick in his hand.
+
+At sight of him Martha uttered a little exclamation of pleasure, and
+gaily called to him to come on. Sonia, in spite of the jerk at her
+heart-strings and the rush of blood through all her veins, felt, taken
+unprepared as she was, a sudden sense of strength and self-possession.
+Her color deepened, and by a swift motion she drew herself erect; and as
+she stood there in her old green skirt and red silk blouse, she looked
+so workman-like and charming that, as Martha drew her brother forward
+toward their easels, her heart quite glowed with pride in both her dear
+companions. She always adored Harold in that coat, and Sonia in that
+dress, and her sensitive organism seemed to be receiving impressions of
+pleasure from the minds of each. Harold stood still, a little distance
+off, and bowed, with a look that expressed some hesitation or
+uncertainty. Looking past his sister and at her friend, he said:
+
+“Do you permit me to look at your work?”
+
+“Oh, if you care to,” said Sonia in a light and natural tone. “It’s a
+mere daub of a study. One goes through a great deal of discouragement in
+a place like this, and a great deal of one’s time is spent in acquiring
+a knowledge of one’s ignorance. After that is quite mastered, things get
+easier. I think I may say that I have graduated in that branch of
+study, and am now ready to go on to the more advanced ones.”
+
+Harold stood still, and looked at her picture. She was thinking how
+natural it would be to ask him if he thought she had improved. He was
+thinking how natural it would be to tell her that she had. Martha was
+thinking how beautiful and full of charm they both were, and almost
+wishing that the atelier could be filled with students to look at such
+models.
+
+It occurred to her now that Harold remained silent unnecessarily long,
+and she was afraid that he did not appreciate her friend’s work; so she
+herself began to speak in voluble praise of it.
+
+Sonia felt a strong impulse to check her, and to explain to her that he
+was always silent when he really liked a thing exceedingly, and that she
+therefore felt delighted that he said nothing.
+
+Harold, however, forced himself to utter a few words of praise that
+sounded very stiff and conventional, and a sort of bewildered look,
+which Martha could not understand, came into his eyes. Sonia understood
+it by its reflection in her own heart. She felt as if she were in some
+strange, confusing dream, where the conditions around her were sad and
+constrained, and yet which she felt she must hold on to and keep
+conscious of, lest they should vanish and leave her utterly
+empty-hearted, estranged, and desolate. While Martha exhibited her own
+work, and proceeded to pick it to pieces in imitation of what Etienne
+would say to-morrow, the man and woman standing behind her, so near that
+they almost touched, were feeling, from this proximity, a force that
+went to the very deeps of both their natures. Hardness, resentment,
+wounded pride, regret--all these were parts of this force in each; but
+there was in it, too, something stronger than any of them, something
+that warned Sonia that she had better not trust herself, at the same
+moment that Harold turned abruptly away, and said that he had an
+engagement, and could not wait longer. He explained in a hurried,
+confused speech, out of which it was hard to get any intelligent
+meaning, that he had forgotten Martha’s need of the carriage, and had
+kept it waiting somewhere for him, which was his excuse for coming to
+the atelier to see if she had waited or was gone.
+
+Martha saw by his manner that something was wrong, and made haste to put
+up her brushes, and follow him into the cloak-room, insisting that Sonia
+should come also, as she objected to leaving her there alone.
+
+Sonia obediently did as she was told, but she felt as if she were
+stumbling along half blindly, and had not the will-power to object or
+protest.
+
+She put on her hat, and was reaching for her heavy cloak, when a strong,
+brown hand, specked with two small dark moles just below the thumb, took
+it down from the peg, and folded it around her.
+
+As she reached to draw to the collar, her hand touched his. If the sight
+of that hand had been familiar to her, what was its touch? She felt
+herself trembling, and her quick breaths almost suffocated her. She had
+just power to control herself until she was in her carriage, and alone.
+Then, falling back upon the cushions, her eyes closed, and she passed
+into a state of semi-consciousness.
+
+She did not really faint, for she was all the time aware that the
+necessity for self-control was for the moment gone, and that she could
+rest, and cease to fight.
+
+Long before the carriage stopped at her own door she had recovered, and
+realized it all. She knew that, miserable as the last two years had
+been, she had gradually been gaining strength, and recovering her power
+for the struggle of life. She might have gone on, and met the future
+bravely, if she had never seen this man again. Not now, however--not
+after she had heard his voice, and met his eyes, and touched his hand.
+This encounter had deprived her of her strength so absolutely that she
+longed only for the safety to be found in flight.
+
+But how would that sudden flight appear to him? That was the question.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+SONIA found herself, after that meeting, in a state of helpless
+irresolution. She could take no action. She could not even make plans.
+She could only drift. There was only one solace--work; and she was now
+generally the last person at the atelier, staying there until the light
+failed. She had got over all her timidity about being there after the
+others. The old concierge was apt to put her head in now and then, to
+nod to her, and give her a sense of protection; and sometimes she would
+come in and chat with her, while she was doing such sketchy sort of
+tidying up as an atelier admits of.
+
+A few days had gone by without her having seen or heard of Harold.
+Martha seemed to divine that the princess wanted to talk only of her
+work and her atelier interests, and had tacitly adapted herself to her
+friend. They often worked together now, after regular hours, but Martha
+generally found it necessary to go before her friend was ready.
+
+One afternoon Martha had left rather earlier than usual, in order to
+keep an appointment with her brother, and Sonia was at work all alone,
+save for the companionship of her little terrier Inkling--a tiny,
+jet-black creature that wore a collar of little silver bells, which,
+Sonia had amused Martha by saying, had caused some one to give him the
+name of “Tinkling Inkling.” She did not often bring her pet to the
+atelier, for fear he might be troublesome. This afternoon, however, she
+knew that Etienne would not be there; and when the little fellow,
+palpitating with eagerness, had looked at her beseechingly from the seat
+of the carriage where she had just shut him in, she had suddenly snapped
+her fingers and twisted her lips into a sound of encouragement, and he
+had leaped out of the carriage window, and followed her with an air of
+perfect understanding that this unusual privilege made a demand on him
+to be on his best behavior.
+
+He had been propriety itself all the afternoon, and Sonia had seen and
+appreciated his heroic self-control in not barking at the model, whom he
+had looked at with inveterate disapproval, only expressed by one little
+whispered growl. The class of society to which the model belonged were
+Inkling’s natural enemies; and whether, in spite of nudeness, he
+recognized this man as a member of that class, or whether the nudeness
+itself outraged his sense of propriety, certain it was that, during all
+the hours in which his mistress was painting, Inkling lay at her feet,
+with his eyes fixed unwinkingly upon his enemy, ready to take advantage
+of the first excuse to fly at him.
+
+No such occasion had arisen, however; and now the model was gone, and
+Inkling, off duty at last, was enjoying the reaction of a sound nap at
+his mistress’s feet.
+
+The room was so profoundly still that Sonia was startled by a rap at the
+door, gently though it was given. Even Inkling did not wake at it. She
+looked up from her easel, expecting to see her footman come to announce
+the carriage, or some workman delivering supplies for the atelier, and
+saw, instead, Harold Keene standing only a few feet from her. She knew
+that the swing-door had closed behind him, and that they were alone
+together. Her heart shook, and for a moment she could not speak. He came
+forward a little, and said in French:
+
+“I beg your pardon, princess. I came for my sister to fill an
+engagement. Is she not here?”
+
+“She has just gone,” answered Sonia, also in French. “She expected to
+meet you at the apartment.”
+
+“I have just been there. Not finding her, I came on here. I suppose I
+passed her on the way.”
+
+Inkling had opened his eyes at the sound of voices, but, seeing that the
+model-throne was empty and his enemy gone, he had not troubled himself
+further. As Harold ceased speaking, a look of sudden interest came over
+the dog, and he got up, his little bells a-tinkle, and trotted across to
+where Harold stood.
+
+No sooner had he looked at him than he uttered a gruff bark of surprise,
+and no sooner had he snuffed once at the legs of his trousers than he
+grew frantic with excitement. He barked and yelped, and jumped up on him
+with such evidences of wild delight that no man with a kind heart in his
+bosom could have refused some recognition of such a welcome.
+
+Harold stooped and patted him, speaking to him in English.
+
+Somehow, to have him treat a dog like that, and to address her in cold
+formality, in a foreign language, by a pompous title which did not
+belong to her, seemed to Sonia wilfully cruel.
+
+Inkling, still frantic with delight, left Harold, and rushed over to
+her, yelping and barking, and shaking his tail violently, looking up in
+her face with eloquent insistency. Then he ran back to Harold, and again
+back to her, with fluttering agitation.
+
+Sonia’s spirit did not falter, however, and her voice was firm and
+steady as she said in English:
+
+“Why do you speak to Inkling in English, and to me in French?”
+
+“Because Inkling and I are old friends, who have a common language,
+while the Princess Mannernorff is a stranger and a foreigner.”
+
+“It seems very childish to keep up that farce.”
+
+“I thought it was your wish.”
+
+“And you despise me, probably, for the deception I have practised in
+passing myself off for the Princess Mannernorff! I did not do it
+deliberately,” she said, with an almost childlike air of contrition and
+confession. “It has hurt me all along to be deceiving Martha; but some
+one told her I was a Russian princess, and as my mother had been one
+before her marriage, and my aunt, with whom I live, is the Princess
+Mannernorff, I let the false impression remain, and even took advantage
+of it. It was wrong, I know; but I did want to hold on to Martha’s
+friendship a little longer. However,” she said, her face and voice
+hardening, “it is simply a question of time; and a few weeks sooner or
+later, what does it matter?”
+
+“Why is it a question of time?” said Harold. “Why should you not keep
+that friendship always, if you care for it? Martha shall know nothing
+from me.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence. Then Sonia said:
+
+“I thought it possible that you might disapprove of our friendship.”
+
+“Why should I? It is a thing absolutely between Martha and yourself.”
+
+“She would cast me off immediately if she knew the truth, and any moment
+an accident may reveal it to her.”
+
+“Such an accident is most unlikely. It could, as things are now, come
+about only through me, and I shall be on my guard.”
+
+How confident and strong he was! It roused all the pride in her. The
+sense of weakness which had overcome her at their last meeting, and
+which for a moment had threatened her in this one, was utterly gone.
+
+“Besides,” went on Harold, quickly, “I believe you are wholly wrong in
+thinking that she would give you up if, by chance, she should discover
+what you have so carefully guarded from her. I see no reason why she
+should.”
+
+He had spoken in English, since she had criticized his using French, and
+Inkling seemed at least partly satisfied, as he stood midway between the
+two, with his front legs wide apart, as if to keep his body firm, while
+his tail wriggled wildly, and his head turned from one to the other with
+a quickness which was enough to make him dizzy. He was alertly aware of
+them, but they had both forgotten him, in the keen absorption in each
+other which underlay their outward composure.
+
+“Have you, then, told her nothing?” said Sonia, in answer to his last
+words.
+
+“Only the simple fact.”
+
+“What fact?” she said, looking him in the face with a certain hardness
+and defiance.
+
+“That the woman whom I had loved no longer loved me; that she had
+repudiated my name and every connection with me, and had asked for a
+divorce, which I was taking all possible steps to give her as soon as it
+could be done.”
+
+“And do you think that Martha, feeling as she does, would continue the
+acquaintance of a woman who had cast off her brother with no stronger
+reason than that?”
+
+“It was sufficient for me. There could not be a stronger reason for
+divorce than absence of love on either side.”
+
+“The world does not agree with you,” she said.
+
+“Yet I fancy Martha would. If it came to remarriage on either side, her
+verdict would perhaps be condemnation; but I think she would consider
+separation a higher thing than a loveless marriage.”
+
+Somehow, there was a spirit in these words that touched her heart. Her
+voice, for the first time, was a little unsteady as she said:
+
+“You do believe that, at least! You do feel that I could never think of
+another marriage!”
+
+“I have always felt it. Indeed, I may say I have known it. I know that
+you see the inevitableness of all this as clearly as I do. I have often
+wished, for your sake, that I had never seen you, to put this blight
+upon your life.”
+
+“And have not I also blighted yours? Do you suppose that I never think
+of that?”
+
+“It need not trouble you, if you do. In my case there was a
+compensation, and a sufficient one. In your case there is none.”
+
+She knew what he meant; that his love for her, and that happy month of
+marriage, had been enough to pay him for having afterward lost her; and
+she knew that he held the fact that she had never really loved him to
+have barred her from any compensation at all. Why did she so resent his
+assuming this? Had she not told him, in language of such emphatic
+decision that it rang even now in her ears, that she had found out that
+she had made a great mistake, and that she had never loved him? He had
+simply taken her at her word.
+
+She wilfully ignored the true meaning of his last words, as she went on:
+
+“It is a mistake to think that my life has no compensations. My work,
+whether it ever amounts to anything or not, is a great compensation.
+The friendship of Martha is another. You are very good to wish not to
+take that from me; but the present sham conditions cannot be kept up
+after we separate. Fortune has favored us almost miraculously as it is.
+She heard that there was a Russian princess studying here, and some one
+mistakenly pointed me out for her. I had already seen her name on her
+canvases, and knowing that your mother and sisters were in Paris, of
+course I knew exactly who she was. Independent of this, her face and
+manner had strongly attracted me, so I saw no reason why we might not be
+friends, provided I could keep from her who I was. As soon as I saw that
+she believed me to be the princess, the fact that my aunt was a Russian
+and had Russian servants opened the way to my carrying on the idea; and
+so far there has been no trouble. My little Russian name for Sophia
+helped me, too. If she had known me as Sophia or Sophie, she would
+probably have recoiled from me, even if she had had no suspicion as to
+my identity.”
+
+“I beg you not to have that thought,” said Harold. “If the time ever
+comes when the truth must be declared to Martha, let me be the one to
+tell her; and I promise you there shall be no recoil--no lessening of
+her friendship for you.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Sonia, coldly. “You were always a generous man.”
+
+Her tone smote discordantly upon Harold. It seemed a sort of compulsory
+tribute to him, which he had no fancy for from her.
+
+“I am thinking of Martha, too,” he said. “She is very lonely in her
+life, and rarely goes out to any one, in spite of her ardent nature.
+This friendship with you is very valuable to her, and I am anxious that
+nothing shall disturb it.”
+
+“Thank you for correcting me,” returned the other, quickly; “though I
+did not really suppose that it was for my sake that you were willing to
+take so much trouble.”
+
+She knew that this speech was silly, petulant, and unworthy of her, but
+she wished him to understand that she asked and expected nothing of him.
+He could not be so cool and steady during this interview unless he had
+ceased to care for her. She quite realized that he had, and she wished
+him to know that she accepted it as a matter of course.
+
+Inkling, meantime, had grown very uneasy. He felt that things were not
+going well, and he now began to show symptoms of distress, instead of
+the wild delight of the moment before. He ran whimpering from one to the
+other; and when they took no notice of him, he sprang upon the lap of
+his mistress, and, uttering the most expressive plaints and beseechings,
+tried to lick her face. Sonia, in a fit of irritation very
+characteristic of her, gave him a hard little slap, which sent him out
+of her lap, whining, and running to Harold for pity. He was not really
+hurt; and she felt cross with the clever little brute for posing as a
+victim so successfully.
+
+“Don’t touch him!” she cried imperatively to Harold. “He’s only
+pretending to get your pity. You sha’n’t pat him or speak to him. If you
+do, I’ll be very angry.”
+
+The effect which these words had upon Harold would have surprised her,
+could she have known it. They were so like her, so absolutely herself,
+that they brought back the past with a rush; and it seemed such a hollow
+pretense to suppose that they were separated, and compelled to be as
+strangers to each other, that he came nearer to losing his head than he
+had done yet.
+
+Ignoring Inkling’s fawnings and plaints, he said suddenly:
+
+“I am forgetting that Martha is waiting for me”; and then, changing his
+tone, and speaking in French, he added:
+
+“May I take you to your carriage, princess?”
+
+She answered him in French, as prompt and easy as himself. She thanked
+him for his offer, but declined it, saying that her servant would let
+her know when her carriage arrived. She added that she was not ready to
+leave the atelier yet, as she had lost time, which she must now make up.
+
+He bowed in silence, turned, and walked away. Inkling made a weak effort
+to follow him, but was scared into a sudden and humiliated return by the
+imperious command of his mistress. The little creature looked so
+ridiculously distressed, as he sat on his haunches near her, with his
+ears dropped and his tail nerveless and still beneath him, that Sonia’s
+irritation deepened as she put up her brushes and paints; and when she
+had washed her hands and was emptying the basin, she yielded to a sudden
+impulse and dashed half the meager supply of water over him.
+
+“There, you little idiot!” she said crossly. “That’s for your ridiculous
+nonsense in trying to make out that I care one pin for him, or anything
+about him. I’ll very soon convince _him_ that I don’t; and if ever _you_
+dare to act in such a way again, I’ll sell you to the concierge on the
+spot!”
+
+Inkling gave every indication of a complete understanding of this
+threat, which had the effect of bringing him at once to a state of cowed
+dejection.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+SONIA said nothing to Martha of that meeting and conversation at the
+atelier; and as Martha made no reference to it, she understood that
+Harold also had been silent on the subject.
+
+A few days went by, which were fraught with agitation to the pupils at
+Etienne’s, as they were the last days of April, and two or three of the
+atelier students were to exhibit in the Salon. Sonia’s picture had been
+entered under a fictitious name, rather against her master’s wishes; but
+he had found it impossible to move her on this point. She had made both
+Etienne and Martha promise her most solemnly to tell no one which was
+her picture; and so she looked forward to the great exhibition with a
+pleasure which had no disturbing element in it.
+
+This pleasure had, however, grown paler recently, as her hold on all
+outward things, slight as she had thought it before, had grown weaker.
+She had felt a real emotion when told that her picture had been admitted
+by the jury, and an intense anxiety as to how it would be hung. In
+contrast to this was the languid interest which she experienced when she
+found that it was on the line.
+
+Martha and she had gone to the _Vernissage_ on the thirtieth of April,
+and had stood before the picture together; but it was Martha who had
+flushed and fluttered with delight at the remarks upon it which they had
+overheard. Sonia herself seemed to have lost interest in it.
+
+On the morning of the _Vernissage_ Harold had gone to London, to be
+absent until the next day, when he was to take Martha to the formal
+opening of the Salon.
+
+There was, therefore, no reason why Sonia should not accept her friend’s
+invitation to dine and spend the evening. When she saw what pleasure her
+acceptance gave the girl, her heart suddenly smote her with the
+reflection that she did very little to reward such ardent love, and she
+impetuously offered to spend the night also, saying that she had not
+done such a thing since her school-days.
+
+Martha was overjoyed; and when Sonia duly arrived, prepared to spend the
+night, the two women made a great effort to get the amount of enjoyment
+which they felt ought to be for each in their _tête-à-tête_ dinner and
+evening together. Their talk, however, seemed rather desultory and
+unproductive, and both of them felt that their endeavors to return to
+their former attitude of free and natural mutual confidence were
+strangely unavailing.
+
+After a rather dull discussion of Paris apartment-houses, and their
+advantages and disadvantages, Martha proposed to show her guest over
+this one; and Sonia went with her into all the rooms, with a civil
+effort to seem interested, until she came to one on the threshold of
+which Martha said:
+
+“This is the girls’ room, which Harold has now. It is just next to
+mama’s, which is the one you have. The governess has a room on the other
+side of the salon, in order to protect me. They tell such frightful
+stories about the crimes and murders in these Paris apartments that I
+used to be quite timid, though I’ve got over it now.”
+
+Sonia, while she appeared to be listening to her companion, was in
+reality so inwardly shaken by certain influences received in this room
+that she felt as if her mind were staggering. On the dressing-table just
+in front of her were several toilet articles in old German silver which
+it seemed to her that she had seen and touched but yesterday. A
+clothes-brush with fantastic decorations of women’s figures, entwined
+with fish and garlands of roses, had a large dent in it, of which she
+knew the whole history. She could even have told why one of the three
+bottles in the leather-case was without a stopper, and what had become
+of the smallest pair of scissors, the place of which in the
+dressing-case was empty. On a table near by was a leather portfolio with
+the letters “H. R. K.” on one corner in a silver monogram.
+
+While Martha moved about the room and talked, Sonia’s eyes searched
+eagerly among the familiar objects for certain others which she would
+have given the world to see. Her search was in vain, however. There was
+not one thing of his own in sight which had not been a possession of his
+bachelor days. This was quite evident, and of course was entirely as it
+should be.
+
+When they returned to the salon, Martha, observing that her friend
+looked tired, proposed that they should go to bed early--an idea
+received with evident favor. They were quite safe in the protection of
+the man-servant, who had been brought with the family from America.
+Harold had given him orders to sleep for the night in the antechamber,
+and Martha had one of the maids in the room back of hers. When she asked
+her guest if she felt at all timid, and saw the smile of amused denial
+that answered her, she went with her to her room, lingered a few moments
+to see that all was comfortable about her, then kissed and embraced her
+friend, and said good night.
+
+Left alone, Sonia stood an instant silent in her place; then, with
+movements of swift decision, she locked the door by which Martha had
+gone out, and, crossing the room to another door, softly turned the
+handle. She had her bedroom candle in her hand, and as the door yielded
+and opened, she passed into the room beyond it, and stood still once
+more, as if possessed by that presence from out the past.
+
+The lights in this room had been put out, and all the doors and windows
+closed. She knew that she was safe in her solitude, and need no longer
+struggle with the feelings which crowded her heart.
+
+She went to the dressing-table, and took up the old clothes-brush, and
+put her lips to the dent which she herself had made there once, by using
+the brush as a hammer. Then silently dashing away the heavy tears that
+rolled from her eyes, she looked closely at the grotesque figures of
+women and fish, and recalled such amusing things which had been said
+about them that she began to laugh, even while more tears were
+gathering, and straining her throat with pain. The nervous little laugh
+died away as she pressed the brush again to her lips. Then she lifted,
+one by one, all the familiar objects that lay before her, and looked at
+them, while her tears fell like rain.
+
+Presently she took up the portfolio from the table near by, and turned
+over the thick sheets of blotting-paper within. She could see plainly
+the inverted and almost illegible, but characteristic, impression of a
+woman’s writing. In some places this was lost in very different
+characters, but in others it was distinctly recognizable. She walked to
+the dressing-table with it, and held it before the mirror, and read
+distinctly in one place the words, “Yours always, Sophie,” and in
+another, “Yours faithfully, Sophia Keene.” Her heart trembled. She had
+no idea to whom she had so signed herself, but she wondered passionately
+if Harold had ever tried this experiment, and seen those signatures from
+the faithless woman who had been his wife.
+
+Suddenly she put the book back on the table, and fell on her knees
+before it, laying her face upon its pages, and sobbing upon them until
+they were saturated with her tears; for, underneath her own handwriting,
+she had seen, reflected in the glass, writing which seemed almost as
+familiar, in which she had deciphered the words, “Your loving husband.”
+
+She had destroyed every word of that handwriting which she had ever
+possessed, and thousands of times her heart had hungered to see it in
+these very words. It was upon this spot that her lips were laid now,
+while they whispered out, in inarticulate sobs and gasps, words of
+heartbroken pain.
+
+She had told him that she did not love him, and had demanded a divorce
+from him. She must never contradict those words, or try to undo that
+act. She knew that she was weak, but she knew that she had courage
+enough to stand to this resolution. He should never know how, slowly at
+first, and afterward with increasing force and swiftness, the knowledge
+of her mistake had come to her. For a while she had fought it off with
+furious denial. She had argued and talked with herself, and recalled
+past feelings of resentment, anger, and desperate antagonism, to prove
+to herself that she had been right in vowing that she did not love him;
+but in the end nothing had availed. Long before their paths had met
+again she had known that she was wrong; that she had made a hideous
+mistake of her life; and that, with all the force, fire, energy, and
+passion of her heart, she loved the man whom she had repudiated. But,
+even with this knowledge, she might have borne it, she might have lived
+and died without making a sign, if only she had not seen him again!
+
+Now, however, that she had seen him, heard him, felt the atmosphere of
+his presence about her, felt his thoughts of her surrounding her, and
+felt through all her pulses his touch upon her hand, what was she to do?
+How was she to stumble on, and pretend to fight, when a mere look from
+his eyes made her sword-arm nerveless?
+
+Oh, she _must_ give way this once, she felt, and shed a few of those
+millions of pent-up tears! Now that she was here in the very room that
+he had slept in yesterday, and would come back to to-morrow, she must
+let the spirit of love and grief within her have its way. Perhaps some
+remnant of it might linger after she was gone, and speak to his heart
+from hers.
+
+As her mind formed this idea, she sprang to her feet. Was she losing
+control of herself? Was her mind weakening or deserting her? How had she
+so forgotten herself as to have this thought, which was in its nature a
+wish? She knew that in her proper senses she would choose to die a death
+of torture rather than that he should have one suspicion of her feeling
+for him. No, no! She passionately recanted that moment’s impulsive wish
+as she took her candle, and, more tranquil now, went over and stood by
+his bed.
+
+It was not swathed in a great cretonne cover, as French beds are apt to
+be, but was made in the American fashion, with smooth white coverlet and
+fair linen sheets. Still holding the candle in her hand, she sank on her
+knees beside this bed, and closed her eyes, and moved her lips in
+prayer. Her long hair was hanging in a thick mass down her back. The
+white gown that she wore was almost as plain as a religious habit, and
+she looked, with her taper burning in front of her, like a nun before a
+shrine.
+
+She felt a certain power of renunciation come into her, and a strength
+to do what right and duty demanded. She rose from her knees, and bent
+over the bed, and for a moment laid her cheek against the cool white
+pillow. Oh, might God be very good to him, she prayed! Might He make up
+to him for all the pain and grief and woe that she had caused him; and
+some time in heaven might he come to know how wholly and completely she
+had loved him!
+
+She felt a sense of inward calm and strength as she turned from the bed,
+crossed the room, and entered her own apartment, closing and locking the
+door behind her.
+
+This peace was on her still as she presently went to bed, and fell
+almost immediately into a dreamless sleep.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+SONIA was awakened early by sounds in the room next her own, and as she
+opened her eyes with perfect recollection of all that had passed the
+night before, she wondered if it could possibly be that Harold had
+returned. It might be only the maid opening and airing the room; but
+whatever it was, she could not sleep again, and she began to devise a
+plan for getting away early, so that she might avoid the possibility of
+meeting Harold. She got out of bed, parted the curtains, and opened the
+casement of the low French window. The early sunshine had washed
+everything with its faint golden glow, and the little new-born leaves
+that covered the trees in the _place_ with a foliage of feathery green,
+paler than ever in its transparence against the sun, made a delicate
+filmy screen, through which she looked down on an exquisite moving
+picture.
+
+The doors of the beautiful, great Madeleine were open wide, and through
+them was pouring a long white rivulet that seemed to have its source in
+the little covered doorway in the side of the basement of the great
+building, and flowed thence in an even stream around the corner, and up
+the great steps of the building, passing between its central pillars,
+and so into the interior of the church. This stream was composed of what
+seemed an unending number of little girls dressed for their first
+communion. They were all in spotless white, with thin, transparent veils
+reaching to the hems of their gowns, white wreaths upon their heads,
+white stockings, shoes, and gloves, and each of them carried a tall
+white taper, to be presently lighted in the church. Stationed like
+sentinels along the line were gray-clad, white-bonneted sisters of
+charity, who directed the children’s movements as they walked with an
+awed stateliness out of the little door, up to the corner and around it,
+and then through the gate and up the steps, and were lost to sight
+beyond the wide church-door.
+
+Sonia could see the very expressions of their faces as they would look
+up for direction to the sisters as they passed, lifting their meek and
+timid glances with an air of solemnity which in some instances
+struggled with a sense of pride in their unwonted paraphernalia.
+Somehow, the sight of so much ignorance, trust, and innocence, and the
+thought that each one of them possessed a woman’s heart, with all its
+capacity for suffering, for hoping, for loving, for regretting,
+absolutely overcame her. How ignorant they were of what lay before them!
+How fearlessly their little feet were entering upon the long journey of
+life, so blind to the pains and bitterness of its way! It seemed
+heartrendingly cruel to her, to think how they must suffer from the mere
+fact that each one of them was a woman-child. O God, that women had to
+suffer so!--that even love, the one delight, should bring in its wake
+such pain! She could see none of the joy ahead of these sweet children;
+she thought only of what her own heart suffered now--the regret, the
+longing, the unfathomable sadness, the blight, the disappointment, the
+despair! The passionate pain of her heart broke forth in violent sobbing
+as she stood between the parted curtains, fascinated by the lovely
+sight, but scarcely able to see it for her tears.
+
+“O God, have pity on them--have pity on them!” she sobbed aloud; and
+then, while her whole frame shook with her violent weeping, she
+suddenly became aware of the stealing on of a new influence. What was
+it? Nothing so definite as sight or sound, but something subtly powerful
+in its significance to her. It was the pungent odor of a certain kind of
+cigar which had once made part of the familiar atmosphere of her life.
+It dominated her now, as if by a spell. She was instantly calmed, and,
+as if by magic, swept back into the thrilling past. Then, suddenly,
+penetrating this familiar atmosphere, there came a familiar sound--no
+articulate utterance, but just a sound in the throat, which seemed
+somehow meant to challenge attention. She would have known that voice in
+the most distant and unlikely spot of earth; and now it became quite
+plain to her that Harold had returned, and was watching the scene
+opposite from his open window, scarcely a yard away.
+
+He must have heard her words and sobs! He must have understood them, he
+was so well practised in reading her heart. It had been an open book to
+him once, though now it must be forever locked and sealed.
+
+Her hands had fallen from the curtains, and she had moved backward.
+There had seemed to come into her strength and support from the mere
+sound of that voice. There was nothing new in this. Often, often had she
+felt it before. And once it had been in her power to summon this support
+at will, in any hour of grief or trial. That power was gone now, never
+to come again; but for this once this supreme and availing help had been
+afforded her. She felt within her the power to be strong, to collect
+herself, and to form and execute plans of getting away from this place
+of temptation and danger.
+
+She fell on her knees. Her soul uttered a prayer of mingled thanksgiving
+and entreaty. As she raised her eyes she could see through the slightly
+parted folds of the curtains the pointed arch that topped the Madeleine.
+Carved in enduring stone, that generations to come might see and gather
+comfort from it, was the gracious figure of Jesus, spreading out his
+arms of welcome to the poor Magdalen, who knelt in supplication at his
+feet. At his side was a glorious, great angel, who, with drawn sword,
+stood over the woman, and thrust back with his other hand the evil
+creatures who in vain besieged her. On the right hand of Christ another
+angel, with wings at rest, held a great horn of triumph, and behind him
+were women crowned and garlanded, with little children clinging to them.
+Farther still was a woman on a bed of illness, over whom another angel
+of mercy had spread its wings as she came to Christ to have her body
+healed.
+
+The center of it all was the beneficent figure of the human Saviour; and
+Sonia, looking down from this immutable image carved in stone to the
+flowing, changing, passing stream of young human creatures beneath, felt
+calmed and comforted. So they could keep their childish faith, there was
+a refuge for them, and she saw them now without any prompting to tears.
+
+She got up from her knees, bathed her face, smoothed her hair before the
+mirror, and then, after darkening the room a little, rang for the maid,
+and asked for her coffee.
+
+By the time it came she was almost dressed, and she instructed the
+servants very carefully not to disturb her young mistress, but to call a
+cab for her at once,--as she found it necessary to go home early,--and
+to tell Martha, when the latter awoke, that she was very well, but was
+obliged to be at home at a certain hour.
+
+Her plan worked perfectly, and on her way to the cab she saw no one
+except the American maid, who went down with her. In passing through the
+antechamber she noticed a man’s covert-coat, stick, and hat, together
+with some crushed newspapers, thrown on a sofa. But she had not needed
+this to convince her of the fact that Harold had returned, and had been
+in his room, watching, as she had watched, the stream of little girls
+beginning their celebration of the month of Mary by taking their first
+communion.
+
+The first of May being also what is known as “Labor Day,” it was a
+strange contrast to the unworldliness and other-worldliness of these
+little _religieuses_ to see the alert military forces now beginning to
+fill the streets, in anticipation of possible insurrection and danger,
+of which there was strong menace that year.
+
+Gendarmes in groups of six and eight, and sometimes even more, dotted
+the streets in all directions, and the mounted guard was out in full
+force. Sonia, looking from her cab window, heard repeated orders given
+to small groups of citizens to disperse. Even two men were not
+permitted to stand and talk together, and she was conscious of a certain
+amusement at seeing two groups of gendarmes combine forces to separate
+these little knots of two and three. Occasionally there was some
+resistance, and she saw several arrests made, which frightened her. She
+felt lonely and unprotected, driving through the streets of Paris with
+an unknown cabman at that early hour, when there was even a possibility
+of such a horror as an insurrection of the French lower orders.
+
+It came over her with piercing power how Harold would once have felt
+about her being in such a position, and how strange, how inexplicable,
+how unnatural, it was that it could be nothing to him now--that, even if
+he knew it, he would feel bound to accept it passively; for nothing, she
+was certain, could induce him to exercise the semblance of a right over
+her.
+
+She got out of the cab at her own door, safe in body, but more excited
+and confused in mind than she had ever been in her life--and perhaps, in
+this moment, more wretched also.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+HAROLD’S condition of mind and feeling on that morning of the first of
+May was so complicated and perplexed that he felt for the first time in
+his life utterly unable to see his way. He was accustomed to having
+things, no matter how difficult, look definite to him. He had not
+hesitated in deciding on his sudden marriage with Sophia Rutledge, nor
+had he felt the least hesitation as to his course a month later, when
+she demanded a divorce from him. His path had been clear and open before
+him, and he had taken it unflinchingly. He felt the same ability to do,
+and the same courage to endure, now, if he could only see his way. He
+knew himself too well to suppose that, after having been married to this
+woman, he could ever love another, and he had quite decided to accept
+his life and to put the thought of happiness out of it. In making this
+decision he had had the strongest possible conviction of the truth of
+his wife’s declaration that she did not love him, and it was this which
+had made submission to her decision the only possible course for him.
+She was such a strong and resolute woman that he had imagined her, after
+the stern ordeal of the first few months of separation, going resolutely
+on, with her life adjusted to its new conditions; and although he was
+certain that her marriage, separation, and the coming divorce would make
+too deep marks in her womanly consciousness for her ever to think of
+marrying again, he quite believed that she was the calm and self-poised
+woman for which he knew nature had intended her.
+
+It was therefore a great surprise to him, on meeting her again, to see
+such marked indications of indecision, nervousness, and lack of control.
+He felt that she often said and did what she had meant not to say and
+do, and he was aware that she was a prey to variableness, fluctuation,
+and caprice. What did it mean? This was the question which he set
+himself to consider with all the concentration of his mind. He did not
+know--what was the truth--that these new qualities in her existed only
+with regard to himself, and that to her aunt, her acquaintances, her
+servants, and all who came in contact with her, she was more than ever
+decided, self-collected, and even self-willed. If he could have known
+that, it would have let in light upon a subject and situation which
+seemed to him impenetrably dark. Every time that he had seen her she had
+left upon his mind a different impression. Sometimes he wondered if she
+could be ill, to account for such a change; and sometimes he told
+himself that it was an unpardonable demand upon her nervous endurance
+for him to come into her presence. Still, when he reflected, he had
+never thrust himself upon her, and on the only occasion when their
+meeting had not been accidental, it had been her deliberate doing. What
+must he conclude from this?
+
+It would be conceit only which could make him think, after that, that
+she either feared or disliked to meet him. He certainly had no right to
+suppose that she sought or wished it. He must, therefore, conclude that
+she was quite indifferent to him, and wished him to accept that view of
+the case.
+
+He tried hard to do this, but there was something in her manner and in
+his own consciousness which positively prevented his holding to this
+idea. It was not that she appeared to him to be unhappy, but she did
+seem disturbed, restless and fitful. After his interview with her in the
+atelier, he felt that she had so definitely conveyed to him her wishes
+in the case that now he had only to follow them and to keep out of her
+way, so far as it rested with him to do so.
+
+On this course he fully resolved; but her beauty, her voice, her
+movements, haunted him by day and night. He knew that he was as
+absolutely under her spell as he had ever been. He knew that a point
+might come when his self-control would be powerfully threatened, and
+then there would be nothing for it but to flee. He was not afraid of the
+consequences to himself which might lie in this betrayal of his past. He
+was thinking of her, and of the increased trouble which it would bring
+into her life if she should come to realize how he still loved her. This
+was a quite unnecessary trial for her, and one which he was resolved she
+should not have.
+
+He had not known of any plan of Martha’s for having her friend spend the
+night of his absence with her, so it took him completely by surprise
+when he returned at an earlier hour than he had expected, and, inquiring
+of the man servant if all was well, was told that the Princess
+Mannernorff had dined and spent the night with his sister. He
+ascertained what room she was occupying, and when the servant, who
+carried his bag, went into his own room ahead of him, he reproved the
+man rather severely for opening the window with such a noise. Then
+immediately he sent the servant away.
+
+He had seen, from below, the beginning of the little procession going
+into the Madeleine; and as he stood half unconsciously watching it,
+possessed by the thought that the woman who had once been his adored and
+adoring wife was asleep in the next room to him, he heard the window of
+that room open, and he knew that she was awake, and standing very near.
+He heard her draw the curtains back by the cords and rings above. He
+even heard the little effort in her breathing caused by the strong pull.
+Each of them, he knew, was looking at the same sight--the beautiful,
+moving panorama, seen through the flecks of sun-washed, young green
+leaves; but while she was thinking of those trustful and unconscious
+children, his thoughts were wholly of her. His heart was filled with
+longings so intense and masterful as to crowd out everything else. Then,
+in a flash, his humor changed; for there came to him her stifled sobs,
+and her calls on God to pity them--those sweet, unknowing little ones,
+born to be suffering women. With his old swift comprehension of her, he
+knew why this sight had touched her so, and he realized what he had only
+dimly felt before, that she was a miserable woman, wearily walking a
+_via dolorosa_.
+
+He did not ask to know what it might be. He longed only to help and
+comfort her. He could not speak, but at least he could let her know that
+he was near; and then it was that he had made the sound which Sonia had
+heard.
+
+That sound was followed by silence. Was she perhaps indignant, he asked
+himself, that he should dare to make this demand upon her attention? She
+would have a right to be; for he could make no pretense that he had not
+deliberately intended to do this. Yet she was alone there, sad and
+troubled, and he was close at hand, with a heart that ached to comfort
+her. He could not have rested, feeling that she was unaware of his
+knowledge of her presence, and no matter what consequences to himself
+the act might carry, he deliberately said to her in that sound: “I am
+here, and I know that you are there.”
+
+If she had made a sign in answer, he would have thanked God on his
+knees; but she had withdrawn from the window in silence, and he had felt
+only that she was gone.
+
+An hour later, when the servant brought his coffee and the morning
+papers, he brought also the information that the princess had gone off
+alone some time before in a cab.
+
+Harold felt, at hearing this, a perfect fury of anger and indignation.
+With the possibility of a riot in view, and the knowledge that ladies
+had been warned not to venture unprotected on the streets, it made his
+blood boil to think she--the delicate woman-spirit and woman-body that
+he knew so well--should have gone forth alone from under the very roof
+with him; and that even if he had known of it, he would have had no
+right to interfere. The legal right, of course, he had; but that fact
+only made it the more impossible for him to assert upon her any claim.
+Not all the laws that were ever made could have bound or loosed him so
+indomitably as did her wish and will. The fact that it was still within
+his power to assert a legal claim upon her constituted in itself the
+strongest possible demand upon a man of his nature to leave her as free
+as air from any bondage or emancipation which could exist by any right
+but that of love. If she had loved him, he would have asserted his power
+and right to control and influence her. As she did not love him, there
+was no creature living who was so free from him as she--this woman whom
+once he had held in as binding fetters as ever love had forged.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+ON reaching home, Sonia went immediately to her room, and sent word to
+her aunt that she was feeling ill, and desired not to be disturbed. Her
+maid brought her a message of condolence in reply, and she knew that she
+was now safe in her solitude for the remainder of the day.
+
+She undressed quickly, threw on a loose dressing-gown, unfastened the
+thick coil of her hair, and then, telling her maid not to come to the
+room until she should ring, she threw herself at full length on the
+lounge, and lay there with her eyes closed, profoundly still. She had
+caused the blinds to be shut and the curtains drawn. The beautiful
+spring sunshine flooded everything without, but about her all was gloom
+and darkness. She could hear the whir of innumerable wheels and the
+click of horses’ feet on the smooth pavement outside, and she knew that
+the streets were alive and abloom with smartly dressed men and women in
+open carriages, driving between the long lines of flowering
+horse-chestnuts down the beautiful Champs Elysées to the Palais de
+l’Industrie.
+
+Long ago she had ordered a charming costume for this occasion, selected
+with much care and thought; and it had come home more than a realization
+of her expectations. She had fancied that she would have pleasure in
+joining a party of friends, and perhaps lingering about the neighborhood
+of her own picture to hear any comments that might be made upon it. She
+had not allowed herself to hope that it would be on the line; but there
+it was this moment, as she knew; and the pretty gown and bonnet and
+parasol, all so painstakingly selected, were neatly put away, and she
+was lying nerveless in this lonely room.
+
+She lay on her back, with her arms, from which the sleeves fell, thrown
+over her head, and her face turned to one side, so that her cheek rested
+against the smooth flesh of one inner arm. The folds of her scant gown
+lay thin and pliant over her long, slim figure, and the pointed toes of
+her little gray _mules_ showed at the end of the lounge where her feet
+were crossed one over the other. To-day she had given up the long, long
+struggle for self-control and strength. She abandoned herself absolutely
+to the dark, unbroken grief which she felt to be her only natural and
+honest life. She did not even long for happiness to-day: she longed only
+for the peace of death--the nothingness of the grave. Oh, to be taken
+so, without the need to stir or move, and lowered into a cool, deep,
+still grave,--breath, consciousness, hope, regret, memory,
+individuality, all, all gone,--and earth and grass and flowers over her!
+That instinct of weak self-pity, to which the strongest of us yield now
+and then, overcame the lethargy of her mood, and the springs of tears
+were touched. Two large drops rose and forced their way between her
+close-shut lids.
+
+“O, what have I done, what have I done, to have to suffer so?” she
+whispered--“to have to give up all, all joy, and take only pain and
+misery and regret for all my life! It was only a mistake. It was no sin
+or crime that I committed when I sent him away, and said that I did not
+love him. It was only an awful, fatal, terrible mistake. I have feared
+so for a long, long time; but, oh! I know it now! I want him back--I
+want him back! I want his love, and his patience, and his care. I want
+him for my friend, and my protector, and my husband. And though I want
+him so, I am farther away from him than if I had never seen him. When
+this hideous divorce is got, and our beautiful marriage has been undone,
+any other woman in the world might hope to win his love. I shall be the
+one free woman on earth to whom that hope would be shame and outrage and
+humiliation. O my God, help me, help me! Show me what to do. Give me
+back at least my pride, that I may not have to suffer his contempt. O
+God Almighty, if his love for me is quite, quite dead, in mercy let my
+love for him die too! Oh, no--no--no! My God, I take it back! I do not
+ask it. I do not want to stop this agony of pain that comes from loving
+him. O God of pity and compassion, give me now a little help, and show
+me what to do. Kill me now--strike me dead, O God--rather than let me do
+anything to cause him to despise me!”
+
+She buried her face in her hands, and went on, speaking between her
+fingers in thick, sobbing whispers.
+
+“God did not hold me back before from cutting my own throat,” she said;
+“and yet I prayed to him with all my soul, as I am praying now! Perhaps
+I was too self-willed, and wanted my own way too much, and so he would
+not hear me. Oh, I _want_ to do his will--I want to let him choose for
+me; but, oh, far more than that I want my love, my darling, my husband!
+We have been joined together by God, and he has not put us asunder, nor
+has man put us asunder. Neither did he do it! It was I,--I myself,--out
+of my weak selfishness and self-will, because I wanted to make
+everything conform to me--because I wished him to love me by a rule and
+ideal of my own--to treat me according to my fancy--to make every
+sacrifice of himself and his nature and thoughts and feelings to me, and
+I was willing to consider him in nothing! But oh, my God, I have been
+shown my wickedness and selfishness! The scorching light of truth has
+come, and now I see it all. If I could have him back! If I could wipe
+out the past, and be once more in my wedding-dress and veil, and give
+him my vows again, O God, thou knowest whether I could keep them now or
+not! It cannot be, it cannot be! He pities me and would be kind to me,
+but he does not love me any longer. O God Almighty,” she cried aloud,
+writhing her body from the lounge, and getting on her knees, with her
+hands and her face lifted upward, “take me and work in me, and give
+light to my blinded eyes! Give me the strength to do what is right--to
+give him up--to stop thinking of him! I cannot bear this tearing
+struggle any more. I can fight no longer. I beg thee only, only for
+this--that I may somehow grope and stumble through this time without the
+loss of the one thing that is left to me--my woman’s pride!”
+
+She fell forward, with her face buried in the lounge, and great sobs
+shaking her body. Gradually these subsided; but long after they had
+ceased she knelt there with her face concealed, alone in the silence and
+darkness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT the same moment, only a little distance off, the sunlight was pouring
+down in floods upon the palms, the stuffs, the pictures, the statues,
+and the crowd of fashionable men and women who thronged the great
+exhibition of the spring Salon.
+
+Voices of men and women rose melodiously, whether in praise or blame.
+Lorgnettes were raised, hands clasped in delight, and shoulders
+shrugged in disapproval. Fans were waved in delicate, gloved hands,
+whose every movement stirred the air in waves of sweet perfume from
+flowers, or delicate odors wafted from women’s gowns. Smartly dressed
+men and women stood about in groups, and now and then a hum arose as
+some great man, decorated with orders, and smiling with confident good
+humor, passed along, bowing to right and left, and receiving
+compliments--too familiar to be anything but gently stimulating--on the
+beauty of his latest pictures.
+
+There were groups, larger or smaller, before many of the canvases; and
+in one of these groups, standing a little apart from the rest, were
+Harold and Martha Keene.
+
+The picture before which they had paused was a rather small canvas on
+which was painted a woman leaning with her elbows on a table, and her
+chin resting in her hands, which met at the wrists, and then closed upon
+the cheeks at either side. The little table before her was perfectly
+bare. There was a striking absence of detail. The one thing which was
+accentuated by careful and distinct painting was a plain gold ring on
+the third finger of the left hand. The loose drapery which wrapped the
+shoulders, leaving bare the throat and arms, was simply blocked in with
+creamy white paint and heavy shadows. The hair was gathered in a thick
+coil at the top of the head. There was beauty in its coloring, and merit
+also in the flesh-tints of the face and throat; but the power of the
+picture was in the eyes, which looked directly at one. The brows above
+them were smooth, definite, and uncontracted. The lines of the face were
+youthful and round. The lips were firm and self-controlled. All the
+expression was left to the eyes, which, large, honest, courageous, and
+truthful, met those of the gazer, and gave their message--the message of
+despair.
+
+“It is called in the catalogue simply ‘A Study,’” said a man standing
+close to Harold Keene; “and certainly there is no need to name it. The
+artist’s name is given as ‘G. Larrien.’ Does any one happen to know it?”
+
+No one did, and the group of people soon passed on; but Harold stayed
+and looked. Martha, who stood at his elbow, was palpitating with
+excitement. She knew the picture and the artist, but she was determined
+not to betray, even by a look, the secret which she had promised her
+friend to keep. She saw that Harold studied the picture with intent
+interest, and she schooled her face to express nothing, in case he
+should look at her. She was watching him closely, and she thought that
+his color changed a little, but he gave no other sign of feeling. He did
+not look toward her. Indeed, there was neither question nor curiosity in
+his eyes, but a look of conviction and, she thought, a look of pain.
+
+A man and woman had paused beside them now, and stood gazing at the
+picture.
+
+“It’s quite a remarkable thing,” said the man; “and it appears to be by
+a new exhibitor. I do not know the name. It certainly tells its story.”
+
+“Yes,” said his companion; “I believe that it is only through marriage
+that despair comes to a woman. If one painted that look in a man’s eyes,
+one would have to invent some better explanation of it than a
+wedding-ring.”
+
+Harold glanced toward the speakers, and then began to move away, without
+looking again at the picture. Martha waited to hear what he would say;
+but as to this particular picture, he said nothing.
+
+Why was it that she felt a sudden certainty that he knew who had painted
+it? It seemed absurd to suppose that he could, and yet she had a
+conviction about it impossible to shake off.
+
+The picture, as Martha knew, had been the hasty work of a few days, and
+had been painted at home. When Sonia had brought it to show to Etienne,
+he had been so surprised and delighted at it that he had insisted upon
+substituting it for the careful and painstaking piece of work which she
+had done in the atelier on purpose for the exhibition. It was evident
+that he recognized some rare quality in this picture, and that others
+had now recognized it also. Martha, looking back, saw that another group
+had formed in front of it, and that animated comment was in progress.
+
+It came over Martha now--a thing she had not thought of before--that in
+spite of the different contour and coloring of the whole face, there was
+a certain vague resemblance to Sonia in it. It was not the eyes
+themselves, for they were blue in the picture; but there was something
+in the shape and setting of them which suggested Sonia. She wondered if
+the lovely princess could have been aware of this herself, for she had
+shown a strong reluctance to exhibit this picture, and had required of
+Etienne and herself a very strict promise of secrecy about it, saying
+that it had been seen by them only. Martha, who knew that her friend was
+unhappy, and that her sorrow had come to her through her marriage, felt
+in her heart that Sonia had painted this picture from the look of her
+own eyes in a mirror when off her usual guard. She wondered if by chance
+Harold had had the same idea.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+THE next morning Martha drove to the apartment in the Rue Presbourg, and
+found her friend in bed, suffering from a headache which had been so
+severe that she had had a doctor. She had passed a sleepless night, and
+it distressed Martha much to see how really ill her beautiful princess
+looked. There were dark rings around the lovely eyes, and the sweet
+mouth, which the girl so loved, had a pathetic droop which showed that
+tears were not far off.
+
+Martha tried to cheer her up, by telling her how much her picture had
+been noticed, and repeating some of the comments which she had
+overheard.
+
+It was strange how little all this was to Sonia. Her pulses did not
+quicken, by one beat, until suddenly Martha said that Harold had been
+fascinated by it, had lingered before it and gone back to it, and that
+somehow she could not help thinking that he suspected that she had
+painted it.
+
+“How could he? It is impossible!” Sonia cried, a faint flush rising to
+her face.
+
+“Yes; I suppose it must be,” Martha conceded; “and yet there was
+something special about the picture to him; and after he had seen it, he
+certainly took no further interest in looking yours up, which, in the
+beginning, he had told me he was going to do.”
+
+“Martha, you must never let him know it! I trust you for that. I shall
+never own the picture as long as I live; and I have the solemn pledge of
+both you and Etienne not to betray me. You know it was against my will
+that I consented to exhibit it, and I could not endure to have it known
+that a melodramatic thing like that (for that is what it will be called)
+had been painted and exhibited by me. Did your brother laugh at it? Tell
+me the truth. If he laughed at it, I wish to know it.”
+
+She had raised herself in the bed, and sat upright, looking at Martha
+with commanding eyes.
+
+“Laugh at it, Sonia? Could any one laugh at that picture--least of all
+Harold? It is one of the most deadly things that I ever looked at. No;
+he did not laugh. Indeed, I think it took from him all power of being
+amused for the rest of the day. I only say this to prove that the
+impression which your picture made was a serious one. He said nothing
+about it, but I know he was impressed by it.”
+
+The princess fell back on her pillows, with a face so flushed and eyes
+so brilliant that Martha feared that she must be in a fever, and blamed
+herself for having talked to her on a subject so exciting as the Salon.
+In a few moments she rose to go. Her friend, although she declared that
+the visit had done her no harm, did not try to keep her, for a sudden
+and excited fancy had seized her.
+
+No sooner was Martha gone than she rose quickly, rang for her maid, and
+began to dress, regardless of the fact that her head felt light, and her
+limbs were trembling. She put on a long cloak and a large black hat;
+and, ordering her carriage, had herself driven to the Palais de
+l’Industrie.
+
+A feverish desire to see the picture again had laid hold upon her. She
+wanted to look at it after knowing that Harold had done so, and to judge
+how much she had betrayed of
+
+[Illustration: “SHE PUT ON A LONG CLOAK.”]
+
+what her own heart had felt, and her own eyes had expressed, when she
+had painted that picture before her mirror, trusting in the complete
+disguise of the decided changes in features and coloring which she had
+made. She had painted the expression as faithfully as she could, knowing
+that no one who had never seen her completely off guard would recognize
+it. She felt now that if she should discover that there was a trace of
+possible identification in either features or expression, she could not
+endure it. Harold would think, and would have a right to think, that she
+had made capital out of her most sacred shame and sorrow; and he was the
+sort of man to whom that idea would be monstrous. She knew that she
+never could have painted it if she had had the least idea of exhibiting
+it; but when it was done, and she had shown it to Etienne to get his
+criticism on the technique, and he had been so plainly delighted with
+it, and urged her not to carry it any farther, but to exhibit it as it
+was, she had agreed to it for three reasons. One was to please her
+master, who was not very easily pleased; another was because she knew
+she could keep it secret by telling no one except the two people who
+already knew; and the third and decisive one was that it was a way
+suddenly opened to her of giving her message to the world impersonally.
+She felt a sort of exultation in the thought that in this way she could
+say: “Look in my face, and see. This is marriage!”
+
+When Sonia got out of her carriage she dismissed it with the maid, and
+mounted the steps with a look of greater firmness and resolution than
+she really felt, for physically she was ill and weak. She knew, however,
+that she might meet with acquaintances here, and might attract the
+attention of strangers by being quite alone, and therefore she realized
+the necessity of calmness in her outward manner. Her face was partly hid
+by a veil, and she had managed to avoid the gaze of one or two people
+whom she had recognized as she made her way quickly to the room in which
+she knew that her picture was hung.
+
+In spite of her preoccupation, it quickened her pulses a little to see
+that there was a small group of people in front of it, evidently talking
+about it. As she stood behind these, and looked full at the face on the
+canvas, which was looking full at her, a sudden sense of conscious
+power, the knowledge that she had created a thing of intrinsic
+character, came over her, and she could hardly realize that it was she
+who had done it.
+
+There was certainly no trace of her feature and coloring in this
+picture, and yet she shrank back, and had an impulse to conceal herself,
+for what she saw before her was undoubtedly the picture of her soul. Her
+heart fluttered, and she felt herself beginning to tremble. Was she
+going to faint here, alone? A wild sense of helplessness seized her, and
+at the same moment she was conscious of a certain familiarity in the
+outline of a shoulder and arm between her and the picture. She glanced
+quickly up at the head of this man, and saw that it was Harold. A little
+sound--scarcely more than a stifled breath--escaped her, and he turned
+suddenly, just in time to go to her and take her arm in his steady,
+reassuring grasp, which seemed to nerve her soul as well as her body to
+make a desperate effort for self-control.
+
+“You are ill. You should not have ventured out alone,” he said. (Oh, the
+strong, protecting voice; the firm, availing touch!) Then he led her to
+a seat, with some quiet words that seemed to put new power into her to
+endure and to resist.
+
+“I must go home,” she said, rising as she felt her strength return. “I
+have been ill. I did not know how weak I was.”
+
+“I will take you to your carriage,” he said; and without seeming to
+recognize the possibility of resistance, he drew her arm in his, and led
+her from the room and down the steps.
+
+It came to her, suddenly, that her carriage was not there.
+
+“I sent the carriage away,” she said. “I thought I would stay awhile,
+and see the pictures.”
+
+He signaled to a waiting cab, and as it drew up to the sidewalk, and he
+put her in, he said quietly, but with resolution:
+
+“I cannot let you go alone in this cab, ill and faint as you are. I beg
+your pardon, princess; but I must go with you”; and he gave the number
+to the cabman, and got in beside her.
+
+That word _Princess_ stung her pride, and gave her a sudden feeling of
+strength. She knew that he meant to convey by its use the idea that it
+was only as a matter of formal courtesy that he felt bound to care for
+and protect her now. She drew herself upright, with a slight bend of
+the head in acknowledgment of his civility.
+
+For a few moments they drove along in silence, utterly alone together.
+Harold wondered if the thoughts of other days and hours were in her
+mind. At the same instant she was wondering the same thing about him.
+She had forgotten that he had just spoken of her with formality, and
+called her princess. Apparently he had forgotten it, too; for he now
+said in a low tone and with suddenness:
+
+“Your picture is remarkable. You have told your story well.”
+
+She felt that denial would be useless. Since he had found her standing
+there before it, she was certain that he knew the truth as well as she
+did.
+
+“I never meant that it should be known that I painted it,” she said.
+“You must know that.”
+
+“Why should it not be known?” he said. “If a woman has looked on what
+those eyes have seen, surely she is called upon to give her warning. If
+that is what marriage meant to you, God pity you! God be thanked that
+you are out of it!”
+
+At his words there rushed across her mind the memory of a thousand acts
+and thoughts and words of tenderness, of love, of strong protection, of
+help in need and comfort in distress, which this man beside her had
+given her. How could she tell him, though, that the ground of the
+despair which she had painted had been the renunciation of these--the
+thought that she had had a vision of what the love of man and woman
+could be in a wedded life, and had been shut out from it? Where were now
+the reasons that had seemed so powerful and sufficient for the course
+which she had taken? Why was it that, try as she might, she could get no
+sense of support and satisfaction from recalling these? Was it because
+she felt them to be the foolish qualms of an ignorant girl, who was
+prepared to fight against any and all conditions of life which did not
+answer to her whim? O God, the hideous possibilities of error and of
+wrong that were about one! How confident of right one might be in doing
+an act of weakness and of shame!
+
+She could not answer his last words. She felt herself suddenly so
+possessed of the sense of his nearness that she could neither collect
+nor control her thoughts. Her eyes were lowered, and she could not see
+his face; but the very sight of his strong brown hand lying ungloved
+upon his knee, the very bend of that knee and fold of the gray trousers,
+seemed as familiar to her as her own body.
+
+Suddenly she seemed to feel that he was hers, and that she was his,
+whether they chose to recognize the fact or not; that God had joined
+them, and no man, not even themselves, had power to put them asunder.
+
+Harold, meantime, was wondering at her silence. Why was it that, after
+her old defiant fashion, she had had no answer ready for his bitterly
+felt and spoken words? That picture had stung his soul, and he would
+have died sooner than have owned to himself even a wish to have her
+back.
+
+In spite of this, he could not forget that they were alone together, and
+that she was ill and weak, and needed pity. He wondered suddenly if he
+had been cruel in what he had said to her, and had put too great a tax
+upon her strength.
+
+As this thought crossed his mind the cab stopped, and he became aware of
+a din of sound, made by the tramping of men and horses, and the blare
+of brass instruments and the beating of drums. The cabman leaned down
+and called to him, saying that the way had been crossed by a procession.
+It would be some time passing. Was monsieur in a great hurry? Harold
+answered no; and as he turned from the window he glanced toward the
+woman at his side, and saw that she was leaning back weakly in her
+corner, deadly pale. Her eyes met his, however, with a wide, direct,
+unflinching look, and he saw that there was no danger of her fainting.
+Consciousness, acute and powerful, was written in those eyes.
+
+Outside, the crowd pushed and jostled by, while the clatter of hoofs and
+feet came more distinctly to the ears as the sound of the band moved off
+in the distance. An instinct to protect that pallid face from being
+gazed upon made him draw down the thick silk blinds. He did this,
+explaining his motive to his companion in a few quick words. Then he
+turned and looked at her, and in the suddenly created gloom their eyes
+met.
+
+He was striving with all his might to keep the fire out of his; but
+suddenly he became aware of the same effort on her part, as she closed
+her lids an instant, and then, as if mastered by a feeling stronger
+than her will, opened them wide, and looked at him again.
+
+His heart leaped. His pulses throbbed. His cheeks flushed darkly. He
+moved a little nearer to her, so that their faces were close, and still
+her eyes met his with that wild, burning, concentrated gaze.
+
+“For God’s sake, what is it?” he said. But she did not move a muscle or
+an eyelash. She only gave her eyes to his, as one would hold up the
+printed page of a book to be read and understood.
+
+“What is it?” he said again, coming so near as to speak in the lowest
+whisper, while his hands grasped hard the top of his stick, and his
+breath came thick and fast.
+
+Her eyes still clung to his, but her lips were wordless.
+
+“I do not understand,” he said. “For God’s sake, speak! I do not want to
+lose control of myself, but I cannot forget that you have been my wife.”
+
+These words, which moved him so that he shook visibly, made apparently
+no impression upon her. Her breathing was so scant and so light as
+scarcely to lift the lace upon her breast; and, near as he was to her,
+he could not hear it. Was she, perhaps, unconscious? He might have
+thought so, but for the deep, intense consciousness in the gaze that she
+fixed upon him, and the flutter of her long-lashed lids as she shut and
+opened them occasionally from the strain of that prolonged look.
+
+Outside, the drum throbbed distantly, like the beating of a great
+excited heart. The thin call of a trumpet sounded keenly like a sigh of
+pain. Nearer the tramp of men and horses could be heard. But all these
+things only made them feel more absolutely alone together--this man and
+this woman who had once been one in marriage! With his breast heaving
+quickly with deep, uneven breaths, he suddenly uttered her name in a
+thick whisper.
+
+Still she remained as she had been before, motionless and wordless,
+while he read her eyes. He dropped his stick, and seized her hands in
+both his own, which were cold and shaking.
+
+“Speak!” he said commandingly. “In God’s name, what do you mean, unless
+it is that you love me still?”
+
+Her hands were quiet and nerveless in his grasp, and in another instant
+he would have lost control and consciousness of what he was doing. But
+at this very moment the cabman called to his horse and cracked his whip,
+the carriage gave a lurch forward, and they rattled rapidly away.
+
+Recollecting himself, Harold dropped the hands which he had seized so
+recklessly, and touched the springs of the curtains, which instantly
+flew up, letting in the full light of day.
+
+The fresh air which came in seemed to calm his heated blood, and he was
+master of himself again.
+
+When he turned to look at his companion, she was leaning back in exactly
+the same position, only her heavy, richly fringed white lids were
+dropped over her eyes.
+
+In this way she remained quite still until the carriage stopped before
+the door of her apartment. Harold, who thought that she had now really
+fainted, was about to summon help from the concierge, when she opened
+her eyes with a look of entire self-possession in them, got out of the
+cab without the aid of his offered hand, and, bowing her thanks, without
+speaking walked past him into the house, with a look of cool dismissal
+which made it impossible for him to follow.
+
+Puzzled, confused, bewildered almost to the point of frenzy, he got
+back into the cab, and ordered the driver to drive in the Bois until he
+should tell him to turn.
+
+Sonia, during that same time, was shut within her room, thinking as
+intensely as he. She had been able, by dint of enormous will-power, to
+control herself in all other points while indulging herself in one. She
+had said to herself during those crucial minutes in the cab, while she
+consciously threw open the windows of her soul to this man in that clear
+and unrestricted gaze, that she would neither speak nor stir, though the
+effort should kill her. She found that she could best carry out this
+resolve by relaxing her body utterly, while her will got every moment
+tenser in its strain. She had said to herself over and over to what
+seemed a thousand times: “Don’t move--don’t speak. Don’t move--don’t
+speak”; and the very consciousness that she was equal to this effort
+made her the more free in the abandonment with which she had let him
+read her heart in her eyes.
+
+Now, as she threw her wraps aside, and paced up and down her room, a
+feeling of delicious exultation possessed her, and the physical weakness
+which she had lately felt was gone and forgotten. It had been a draught
+of intoxicating joy simply to look at him with free and unbridled eyes.
+Was he not her husband, who could not be, by any act of man, really
+parted from her? What had she shown him but a woman’s feeling for her
+wedded lover? Was she crazy, she wondered, that she could have done it
+then, and could feel now no regret--only a wild delight--in having done
+it? O God, O God, how long it was that she had shut herself off from
+feeling, and how good it was to feel once more! She was alive in every
+nerve and pulse, as she had not been for so long; and the throbbing of
+life was sweet, sweet, sweet! Never mind about the future; she would
+meet it boldly, and make up some excuse--that she had been ill or
+unconscious in the cab--pretend that she had forgotten the whole
+thing--do anything that was needed, as to that!--but the throbbing bliss
+of that one half-hour, she exulted that she had been bold enough to make
+her own.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+THE _cours_ was closed at Etienne’s, but Sonia, who could not bear to
+face the hours of idleness which each day must contain during the few
+weeks which her aunt was still to spend in Paris, got permission to come
+and work in the atelier during the afternoons. She was privileged to get
+her own models as she required them, and Martha was to come also when
+she had time and inclination.
+
+The day after her encounter with Harold at the Salon, Sonia, strong in
+purpose and confident in will, went to the atelier with only Inkling to
+protect her and keep her company, and set resolutely to work to do some
+severe drawing.
+
+She had abundance of both time and space now, and she settled herself
+with great care and deliberation, with the anatomical figures and
+numerous copies of Ingres’ drawings full in view. She had not worked
+very long, however, before her enthusiasm began to ebb, and she put
+down her charcoal and went across to the model-throne, where she sat
+down with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, and fell to
+thinking deeply. Inkling came and jumped up in her lap, but she pushed
+him away with a roughness unusual to her, and he had to content himself
+with curling up on her skirt. As she sat there, conscious of being quite
+alone, she was as absolutely still as any of the customary holders of
+this position; but the varied expressions which crossed and changed her
+face would have made any class of students in the world despair of such
+a model. Sometimes she would look quite happy for an instant, as if a
+thought of joy had forced its way uppermost. Then again deep pain would
+come into her face, and shadows of doubt, perplexity, and hopelessness.
+
+She sat so for a long time. Inkling had had a deep and peaceful sleep on
+the soft folds of her gown, from which he was startled by a knock at the
+door. His mistress sprang up suddenly, rolling him over, and he began to
+bark furiously, while Sonia, with an attitude of studious absorption,
+took her place at the easel, and seized her bit of charcoal. She
+thought it was probably only some boy on an errand, but she was also
+acutely conscious of whom it might possibly be. So she was not entirely
+unprepared for the sight of Harold appearing quickly around the edge of
+the old sail-cloth screen.
+
+He bowed with a brevity and formality which seemed to imply that she
+need fear no agitating disturbance from him; but instead of standing in
+his place and stating the reason of his presence, he came forward.
+
+Inkling, wild with excitement, began a repetition of his frantic
+performances of the former occasion; but his mistress, determined to
+have nothing of that sort, promptly suppressed him, and he slunk away
+and lay down with great meekness.
+
+Harold, seeming to take no cognizance of the dog, came nearer, and
+waited until the absorbed figure before the easel should notice him.
+Presently she did this by saying formally:
+
+“Martha is not here. She has not been here to-day.”
+
+“She is at home. I have just left her,” he answered.
+
+“Oh, I beg your pardon! I thought you had come to see her.”
+
+“No; I have come to see you.”
+
+“To see me?” lifting her eyebrows in light surprise.
+
+“If you are at leisure.”
+
+“I am busy, as you see; but I can talk to you as I draw, if you don’t
+mind.”
+
+“If you will allow me, I will wait until your drawing is done.”
+
+“That would take up too much of your time,” she said, laying down her
+charcoal, and elaborately brushing off her fingers with her
+handkerchief.
+
+“Not at all. I have nothing to do.”
+
+“I would rather speak to you first--whatever it is you have to say--and
+go on with my work afterward. I dislike to draw with people looking on.”
+
+“In that case I will ask you to give me your attention at once. Will
+you, perhaps take this seat?”
+
+He indicated an old wooden arm-chair; but she declined it with a quick
+motion, and went over and took her old place on the model-throne,
+lifting Inkling to her lap. Harold seated himself on a bench directly
+facing her.
+
+“I am sorry if I am annoying you,” he said; “but I cannot take the
+consequences of not speaking to you now.”
+
+“Consequences?” she said. “What consequences?”
+
+“Consequences to you and to me. I will ask you to be kind enough to look
+at me while I explain them.”
+
+Her eyes were fastened upon Inkling, and she kept them so, while she
+began to twist his soft ears. There was a moment of intense stillness
+throughout the room. Then the man, in a voice of deep concentration,
+spoke her name.
+
+“Sophie,” he said.
+
+“Pray don’t call me by that name,” she answered quickly. “I have never
+liked it, and I wish now to forget it.”
+
+“Sonia, then, if you prefer it. I want simply to make plain the fact
+that I am speaking to _you_, the woman who bears that name, and not to
+the princess, as you are supposed to be.”
+
+“Go on,” she said.
+
+He was silent. She kept her eyes fixed on the dog until she was afraid
+that her stubbornness would look childish, or, worse even than that,
+timid. Then she looked up.
+
+The next instant she wished that she had not, for the compelling look
+that met her own did for a moment make her feel afraid. She summoned all
+her force, however, and looked at him defiantly, her head raised, her
+eyes steady.
+
+“I want you to explain to me what you meant yesterday,” he said.
+
+“What I meant yesterday? What do you mean?”
+
+“What you meant yesterday, driving home in the cab.”
+
+“What I meant yesterday by driving home in the cab? I suppose my meaning
+was the obvious one--that I was tired and ill, and that my own carriage
+was not there.”
+
+The timidity which she had felt before grew now into positive terror, as
+she felt the masterful force of this man’s power over her. So strong was
+her sense of it that she felt absolutely reckless of what she said or
+did, so long as she was able to resist him.
+
+“You will not move me, or change my intention--my _determination_ to get
+an answer to my question. Your evasion of it is childish as well as
+useless.”
+
+“I will be childish if I choose. Who is to prevent me?” she said
+defiantly.
+
+“I will. I have no intention of submitting to any such childishness
+now. You are a woman, and you are the only woman who exists for me. In
+that character I mean to have your answer to my question.”
+
+His words made her heart throb quick, with a feeling outside of the
+terror of self-betrayal by which she was possessed. She gave no outward
+sign, however, as she looked down, and began once more to pull at
+Inkling’s ears.
+
+Before she realized what he was doing, Harold had bent forward, and
+lifting the dog from her lap, he set him on the floor, with a shove that
+sent him half-way across the room. As the little creature ran off
+frightened, Harold turned to the woman facing him, and forcibly took
+both her hands in his.
+
+She jerked them from him with a powerful wrench, as she sprang to her
+feet, retreating a few paces until she was stopped by some benches and
+easels huddled together on that side of the room.
+
+“Don’t touch me!” she cried, in a voice of real terror.
+
+He let his hands drop to his sides, but he followed, and stood very
+close to her, as he said:
+
+“You had better answer me, and let me have my way. I am not to be
+turned now. This interview between us must be final, and I promise you
+that after it you shall be safe from any persecution from me. Now,
+however, the present moment is my own. I have you in my power--and that
+power I intend to use!”
+
+“An honorable and manly thing to say!” she panted, her eyes blazing and
+her lips curled. “Do you mean me to understand that you would use force
+to make me comply with your wish?”
+
+“I mean just that,” he answered, bending over her with eyes that gave
+her the feeling of a physical touch. “I will prevent your leaving this
+room until you have honestly and fairly spoken to me, and have either
+confirmed or denied what your eyes plainly said to me yesterday.”
+
+“You are cowardly and cruel!” she cried. “You are taking a mean
+advantage of me! I was ill yesterday. I was half unconscious--”
+
+“You may have been ill,” he interrupted. “I know indeed that you were,
+and that physical weakness may have led to self-betrayal; but you were
+not unconscious. Far from it. You were never more acutely conscious in
+your life than during those long moments when you looked at me with
+love.”
+
+“I deny it!” she cried angrily.
+
+“Useless!” he answered. “It is not to be denied.”
+
+She tried to draw farther away, but the barricade of easels stopped her.
+Then he himself stepped backward, and put some feet of space between
+them.
+
+“I cannot bear to see you shrink from me,” he said. “You will have to
+forgive a persistence that may seem to you brutal; but fate has put this
+opportunity into my hands, and I’d be a fool not to use it.”
+
+“And what do you expect to get from it?” she asked.
+
+“An answer in plain words to this question, Do you, or do you not, love
+me?”
+
+“I do not!” she cried hotly; but her breast was heaving so, her heart
+was throbbing so, that she could scarcely catch her breath; and she felt
+that not for all the world dared she look him in the face.
+
+“Your eyes yesterday contradicted your words of to-day,” he said. “I
+will not be content until I have had both. So help me God, you are not
+going to trifle with me now! I will make you look at me, and confirm
+with your eyes the words you have just spoken, or I’ll have you for my
+wife again!”
+
+He caught her in his arms, and drew her close against him. She opened
+her mouth as if to scream, but he laid his palm upon it, not forgetting,
+for all his strength, to touch her gently.
+
+“Oh, my darling, my precious one,” he said, “don’t call out for
+protection from me, as if I were your enemy! Surely you know that I
+would die by torture before I would hurt you--body or soul. But
+something--a wicked pride, perhaps--is making you struggle against the
+truth; and, for your sake as well as for my own, I must make a fight for
+it. Look! I offer you the chance. If you can look me in the face, and
+say with eyes and lips together, ‘Harold, I do not love you,’ then you
+are as free as air. If you can do that, I will go, and never cross your
+path again.”
+
+He had taken his hand from her mouth, for fear her panting breaths would
+cease. He could feel the violent beating of her heart against his side.
+An overwhelming tenderness and pity for her filled him, and his arm,
+relaxing its stern pressure, drew her close, with an embrace whose only
+constraint was that of love. Her ear was very close to him, and he spoke
+to her in the lowest whispers.
+
+“Dear one,” he said, “what is it you are fighting against, if it be not
+the coming back of love and joy?”
+
+He could not see her eyes. He did not wish to see them yet. This waiting
+was bliss, because there was hope in it.
+
+She had ceased to struggle, and was quiet in his arms. They stood so,
+many seconds, their hearts throbbing against each other, their cheeks
+pressed. In the unspeakable sweetness of his nearness, Harold felt
+against his face the moisture of a tear.
+
+“What is it?” he whispered. “You are crying! For God’s sake, tell me
+why!”
+
+A gentle little head-shake answered him; but she made no motion to draw
+herself away, and he, enraptured, held her close.
+
+“There is nothing--_nothing_ that you cannot tell to me,” he said, still
+in that whisper that thrilled the silence of the room. “Perhaps you do
+not understand. Listen, and I will make it all plain. I loved you then.
+I love you now. I have loved you through all the pain and silence in
+between. Oh, dearest, never dream but that you are still my own--wholly
+and unchangeably as I am yours--if only you love me!”
+
+She kept so still that he was puzzled. He made a motion to draw back his
+head and look at her, but she put up her hand and pressed his cheek
+still closer against hers. He passionately wished that she would speak;
+but there was no sound except that fluttered breathing, no motion but
+that little tremor which he felt against his side. She was weakening,
+weakening, weakening--he was sure of this; but he was in such an
+absolute terror of misunderstanding her mood that he dared not move or
+speak.
+
+As they stood there so, he felt a sudden tightening of the pressure of
+her arms. They strained him close against her. His heart leaped; but he
+was not sure. There was something that alarmed him even in that clasp of
+love.
+
+“Are you happy?” he whispered in the lowest murmur. But with a sudden
+wrench she tore herself away from him, and when he tried to follow,
+waved him back with a gesture which he could not disregard.
+
+“Happy!” she said in a voice that mocked the thought, as she wrung her
+hands together, and then, for a moment, hid her face in the curve of one
+tensely bended arm. “What have I to do with happiness?” she cried out,
+flinging wide her arms, and looking upward, as if appealing to some
+invisible presence rather than to him or to herself. “I had it given to
+me once in boundless measure, and I played with it, and tossed it from
+me. It was lightly and easily done, and now it cannot be undone.”
+
+Harold stood where her imperious gesture had stopped him, and looked at
+her in consternation.
+
+“What do you mean?” he said. “You will not try now to deny your love for
+me! You have owned it in that close embrace which can mean nothing
+but--”
+
+“Good-by!” she interrupted him. “It means inevitable parting. You must
+go, or, if not, I must fly to some place where we cannot meet again.”
+
+“But, dearest, we cannot part. I have told you how I love you in plain
+words. You have told me the same, without the need of words.”
+
+She looked at him,--a deep, inscrutable gaze,--and shook her head.
+
+“I have had perfect love once,” she said, “and from you--the one man
+whose love could ever have any meaning for me--love that included
+perfect trust, perfect confidence, perfect respect. I refuse to take
+from you a smaller thing. It is easier to give you up than to face that
+thought.”
+
+“But Sonia! Darling! You have got that love! I tell you it is just the
+same!”
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“It cannot be,” she said. “You would feel that what had been once might
+be again. You could never feel secure for even one moment. I could not
+bear it. You must remember what I felt in that one embrace. Oh, Harold,
+I _want_ you to remember that! And now you must let me go.”
+
+“Go?” he said. “Where should you go, but here to me--to your right
+place, your home, your husband?”
+
+At this last word she gave a sharp cry. She had been standing
+unsupported, and now a sudden trembling seized her, and she half
+tottered toward a chair. In an instant he was at her side, his arms
+about her, fast and sure. It was too sweet, this strong and tender
+holding up of her weak body. She let it be, but she was motionless and
+wordless in his arms.
+
+“My own child,” he said, “there can be no question as to our future now.
+It was all a mistake--the past! If we acknowledge it--”
+
+“Oh, the past, the past!” she said. “I can never get away from it. We
+have lost two years. No matter if we had the whole future of time and
+eternity, we could never get those back--and it was I that did it! It is
+good of you to say that you forgive me; but I--oh, I never can forgive
+myself! You never can believe in me again. I dare not ask or look for
+it. I don’t deserve it. You would be wrong and foolish if you did.”
+
+“Then wrong and foolish I will be!” he said. “I will believe in you
+again and again, forever! You have forgotten something, Sonia. There is
+no question of judgment between you and me, because you are myself. Do
+you not feel that that is so?”
+
+She did not answer, and he said again, in that compelling tone she knew
+so well:
+
+“Do you not feel it so, my wife?”
+
+She raised to his, unswervingly, eyes that were clear as stars after
+their recent tears. She unveiled her soul to him as daringly as she had
+done yesterday, and the message that they gave him was the
+same--abundant, free, unstinted love, without reserve or fear.
+
+He drew her quickly closer, still holding her eyes with his.
+
+“Speak! Tell me!” he said.
+
+Then voice and look together spoke:
+
+“I love you, Harold--my husband!”
+
+He took the dear words from her lips with his.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AFTERWARD, when they were seated together on the model-throne, they were
+startled by a timid little tinkling, and as they both with a sense of
+compunction called to Inkling to come, and he sprang up between them
+quivering with joy, and making frantic efforts to lick both their faces
+at once, their laughs and struggles made such a commotion that they did
+not hear the door open, admitting Martha.
+
+She half crossed the room, and then stood still, transfixed with
+amazement, till they drew her down between them and told her everything.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“SO you are not a princess, after all!” said Martha.
+
+“Oh, yes I am,” Sonia answered quickly. “I’m ‘The Happy Princess’--and
+this is my Prince!”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Princess Sonia, by Julia Magruder
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