me stagnant invited Goth and Vandal. So
forth: alliterative antitheses of the accustomed pamphleteer. At last her
chance arrived.

His opposition sketch of Inaction was refreshed by an analysis of the
character of Hamlet. Then he reverted to Hamlet's promising youth. How
brilliantly endowed was the Prince of Denmark in the beginning!

'Mad from the first!' cried Clotilde.

She produced an effect not unlike that of a sudden crack of thunder. The
three made chorus in a noise of boots on the floor.

Her hero faced about and stood up, looking at her fulgently. Their eyes
engaged without wavering on either side. Brave eyes they seemed, each
pair of them, for his were fastened on a comely girl, and she had strung
herself to her gallantest to meet the crisis.

His friends quitted him at a motion of the elbows. He knelt on the sofa,
leaning across it, with clasped hands.

'You are she!--So, then, is a contradiction of me to be the
commencement?'

'After the apparition of Hamlet's father the prince was mad,' said
Clotilde hurriedly, and she gazed for her hostess, a paroxysm of alarm
succeeding that of her boldness.

'Why should we two wait to be introduced?' said he. 'We know one another.
I am Alvan. You are she of whom I heard from Kollin: who else? Lucretia
the gold-haired; the gold-crested serpent, wise as her sire; Aurora
breaking the clouds; in short, Clotilde!'

Her heart exulted to hear him speak her name. She laughed with a radiant
face. His being Alvan, and his knowing her and speaking her name, all was
like the happy reading of a riddle. He came round to her, bowing, and his
hand out. She gave hers: she could have said, if asked, 'For good!' And
it looked as though she had given it for good.

CHAPTER IV

'Hamlet in due season,' said he, as they sat together. 'I shall convince
you.'

She shook her head.

'Yes, yes, an opinion formed by a woman is inflexible; I know that: the
fact is not half so stubborn. But at present there are two more important
actors: we are not at Elsinore. You are aware that I hoped to meet you?'

'Is there a periodical advertisement of your hopes?--or do they come to
us by intuition?'

'Kollin was right!--the ways of the serpent will be serpentine. I knew we
must meet. It is no true day so long as the goddess of the morning and
the sun-god are kept asunder. I speak of myself, by what I have felt
since I heard of you.'

'You are sure of your divinity?'

'Through my bel