er glass the brag had died away.

"No children," he had whispered to me across the table; "that's what I
can't understand. Nearly four years and no children! What'll be the
good of it all? Where do I come in? What do I get? Damn these rotten
popinjays! What do they think we buy them for?"

It was in the studio on a Monday morning that Norah told me. It was
the talk of the town for the next day--and the following eight. She had
heard it the evening before at supper, and had written to me to come and
see her.

"I thought you would rather hear it quietly," said Norah, "than learn it
from a newspaper paragraph. Besides, I wanted to tell you this. She did
wrong when she married, putting aside love for position. Now she has
done right. She has put aside her shame with all the advantages she
derived from it. She has proved herself a woman: I respect her."

Norah would not have said that to please me had she not really thought
it. I could see it from that light; but it brought me no comfort. My
goddess had a heart, passions, was a mere human creature like myself.
From her cold throne she had stepped down to mingle with the world. So
some youthful page of Arthur's court may have felt, learning the Great
Queen was but a woman.

I never spoke with her again but once. That was an evening three years
later in Brussels. Strolling idly after dinner the bright lights of a
theatre invited me to enter. It was somewhat late; the second act had
commenced. I slipped quietly into my seat, the only one vacant at the
extreme end of the front row of the first range; then, looking down upon
the stage, met her eyes. A little later an attendant whispered to me
that Madame G---- would like to see me; so at the fall of the curtain I
went round. Two men were in the dressing-room smoking, and on the table
were some bottles of champagne. She was standing before her glass, a
loose shawl about her shoulders.

"Excuse my shaking hands," she said. "This damned hole is like a
furnace; I have to make up fresh after each act."

She held them up for my inspection with a laugh; they were smeared with
grease.

"D'you know my husband?" she continued. "Baron G--; Mr. Paul Kelver."

The Baron rose. He was a red-faced, pot-bellied little man. "Delighted
to meet Mr. Kelver," he said, speaking in excellent English. "Any friend
of my wife's is always a friend of mine."

He held out his fat, perspiring hand. I was not in the mood to attach
much importance to