rried woman; to fall in love
with her, were he so disposed, would be hopeless, unless he resolved
to risk a scandal that might adversely affect their respective
careers.

And more important still, although he felt for her a quite warm
friendship, he was not the least in love. Her full and opulent beauty
possessed little attraction for him.

Although at present he did not fully realise the fact, the serene
loveliness of the young Princess Nada, combined with her girlish
_esprit_, her air of rank and position, had cast a spell over him that
he could not shake off. She would always be the lady of his dreams,
although by the exigencies of their different stations, he would be
compelled to worship her in secret and from afar.

She was surrounded with the halo of birth and great position. Madame
Quero, although a woman of genius and considerable brain power, had
sprung from the peasant class. Her husband, whom she had married when
little more than a child, had been a poor fisherman. She made him a
handsome allowance, on the condition that he never intruded his rights
nor exposed her to the annoyance of his presence.

Her glorious voice had lifted her from grinding poverty and obscurity,
her quick mentality had enabled her to acquire much, to adapt herself,
with more than fair success, to her new environment. But certain
traces of her humble origin showed themselves very plainly at times,
especially in moments of excitement--vulgarity of gesture, some common
terms of speech, picked up from the gutter where she had played with
other bare-footed children like herself.

To a man of Corsini's naturally refined and elevated temperament,
these unconscious revelations came as a disturbing shock. And the more
intimate he became with her, the more frequently she revealed herself,
having no longer occasion to wear a protecting mask.

In a palace or a fashionable drawing-room, with that careful mask on,
La Belle Quero was one personage, most careful as to speech and
manner. In her dressing-room, or in familiar intercourse with a fellow
artist, not of the great world, only belonging to the aristocracy of
talent, she was quite another being, with the solecisms, the
occasional coarse flashes of humor, of the Biscayan peasant.

No; although La Belle Quero was so much nearer to him from the social
point of view, for his origin had not been so much more distinguished
than her own, he could not feel fascinated, in spite of her obvious