rn to
Austria. . . . You see, I'd be an American. I'd no longer be Graefin
Zattiany. . . . I could accomplish nothing. . . . It is the strangest
thing in the world, but I never had thought of changing my name----"

"Until Hohenhauer reminded you, I suppose. Well, I could have told you
that myself. I had counted on it, if you want to know the truth."

"Ah! Then you counted on that to--to----"

"To have you altogether. Yes." And then he added hastily: "But up
there--you must believe this--I never gave it a thought--after--after
you promised to marry me at once."

He doubted if she had listened to this protest that there had been an
hour when in the complete baring of his soul he had been above plotting
and subterfuge. She was still looking out of the window. He saw her
long upward-curving nostril grow rigid.

But she said quietly: "And what do you think you would have done with
me, Lee, after we were on the plane of common mortals once more?
Transports do not last for ever, you know, and we are not heedless
young things with no thought of the future. You have acknowledged
there is no place for me here, and there would be no place for me in
Europe if I married you. Do you wonder that I came away to think,
after Prince Hohenhauer--who, remember, knows me far better than you
do--pointed out the inexorable truth? What would you do with me, Lee?"

He stared out of the window in his turn--at the tender greens of the
Park. He could hear the birds singing. Spring! The chill of winter
was in the car, and it emanated from the woman beside him.

"I don't know," he said miserably. "I only know that I love you and
would take any chances."

"But, you see, although it is my misfortune to love you, I recognize
that there is a long generation between us. I thought I had spanned
it, but--do you realize that we have literally nothing to give each
other but love? That we are as unlike----"

"Oh, yes, I realized all that the night you left. But I don't care.
Cannot you trust me?"

"There is that long generation, Lee. And it is I who have lived it,
not you. Lived it and outlived the woman who began it. The gods in a
sportive mood made us for each other--and then sent me into the world
too soon. . . . I must go on. It is not in me to go back nor to
remain becalmed. Hohenhauer told me many cruel truths. Those women at
my dinner might have enlightened me if I had not deliberately bandaged
the eyes of my min