d-for-nothing, you mean?" he said,
with a kind of resentful bitterness. "No! I dare say I should not.
Money!" he cried impetuously as he jumped to his feet, and burying his
hands in the pockets of his breeches he began pacing the path up and
down in front of her. "Money! always money! Always talk of duty and of
obedience . . . always your father and his sorrows and his desires . . .
do I count for nothing, then? Have I not suffered as he has suffered?
did I not live in exile as he did? Have I not made sacrifices for my
king and for my ideals? Why should I suffer in the future as well as in
the past? Why, because my king is powerless or supine in giving me back
what was filched from my father, should that be taken from me which
alone gives me incentive to live . . . you, Crystal," he added as once
again he knelt beside her. He encircled her shoulders with his arms,
then he seized her two hands and covered them with kisses. "You are all
that I want in this world. After all, we can live in poverty . . . we
have been brought up in poverty, you and I . . . and even then it is
only a question of a few years . . . months, perhaps . . . the King must
give us back what that abominable Revolution took from us--from us who
remained loyal to him and because we were loyal. My father owned rich
lands in Burgundy . . . the King must give those back to me . . . he
must . . . he shall . . . he will . . . if only you will be patient,
Crystal . . . if only you will wait. . . ."

The fiery blood of his race had rushed into Maurice de St. Genis' head.
He was talking volubly and at random, but he believed for the moment
everything that he said. Tears of passion and of fervour came to his
eyes and he buried his head in the folds of Crystal's white gown and
heavy sobs shook his bent shoulders. She, moved by that motherly
tenderness which is seldom absent from a good woman's love, stroked with
soothing fingers the matted hair from his hot forehead. For a while she
remained silent while the paroxysm of his passionate revolt spent itself
in tears, then she said quite softly:

"I think, Maurice, that in your heart you do us all an injustice--to me,
to father, to yourself, even to the King. The King cannot give you that
which is not his; your property--like ours--was confiscated by that
awful revolutionary government because your father and mine followed
their king into exile. The rich lands were sold for the benefit of the
nation: the nation pres