n a love like that?"

She closed her eyes and drew a long breath. "Ah, these Americans! These
extraordinary husbands! I have done nothing but hear of them!"

"He was not my husband."

"But he was to be?"

"Oh, yes!"

The Princess rose, walked around the table and stood beside the chair
that held her portrait.

"My child, I respect your grief. My heart bleeds for you, but you are to
be envied." With uplifted eyebrows, and her head slightly to one side,
she went on: "My husband, the Prince de Champvalliers is good. We adore
one another. As a husband he is satisfactory,--better than most. But if,
by chance, I should fall into a river, with death in its current, and he
were safe and dry upon the bank--"

Sadly she smiled, and with a shrug of the shoulders turned about and
moved away.

Erect, and with a jaunty step, she walked about the room, renewing
acquaintance with old friends of her youth: with the little tapestried
fables on the chairs and sofa; with certain portraits and smaller
articles. But it was evident that the story she had heard still occupied
her mind, for presently she came back to the table and stood in front of
Elinor. With a slight movement of the head, as if to emphasize her
words, she said, impressively, yet with the suggestion of a smile in her
half-closed eyes:

"Were I in your place, my child, I should grieve and weep. Yes, I should
grieve and weep; but I should enjoy my sorrow. You are still young. You
take too much for granted. You are too young to realize the number of
women in the world who would gladly exchange their living husbands for
such a memory." She raised her eyebrows, closed her eyes, and murmured,
with a long, luxurious sigh: "The heroism! the splendid sacrifice! I
tell you, Mademoiselle, no woman lives in vain who inspires in an
earthly lover a devotion such as that!"

[Illustration]

XVI

NEWS FROM THE WORLD

Jacqes soon appeared. As his knowledge of English was scant, the
Princess gave him the story she herself had heard. Great was his horror
on learning that when last he came--in September--and left the usual
provisions, the Duc de Fontrevault had been in his grave since the
previous June.

He asked many questions. Elinor told him everything that could be of
interest, and the Princess listened eagerly to these replies. The old
servant seemed pleased when Elinor turned to him with a smile and said,
in his own language: "So you are the French Fairy. That is