on that score. But still--in your
place--you men, you love differently from us. And not so well," she
added with a sigh, as Anne appeared with her fur-lined cloak, and
announced that the carriage was waiting.

Some hours later Wilhelm was startled out of a deep sleep by burning
kisses. He opened his dazed eyes, and, blinking in the lamplight, saw
Pilar standing by the bed as if in a cloud. She held her great bouquet
in one hand, and with the other was plucking the roses and gardenias to
pieces, and strewing the petals over his head and face, as she did in
the sunny afternoons at St. Valery. She must have been engaged in this
pastime for a considerable time, for the pillows and quilt were covered
with flowers, and his hair was full of them. As neither Pilar's entry
with the lamp nor the shower of blossoms had succeeded in wakening him,
she had leaned over him and roused him with a kiss.

"Oh, sleepy head!" she cried, and continued to rain flowers on his
dazzled, blinking eyes. "At least you have been dreaming of me?"

"To tell the truth," he returned, "I have not dreamed at all."

"And I have never left off thinking about you all the time, and have
longed so for you. Look here!"

She took a lamp off the chimney-piece, and held up her ball programme
before his eyes. The blank places were filled up with pencil-writing,
which looked as if it might be lines of poetry: which in truth it
was--Spanish improvisations breathing burning love and passionate
longing. He would have understood or guessed their meaning even if
Pilar had not translated them with kisses and caresses.

"Now, you see, you bad boy," she went on, "those were my thoughts while
I was away from you. I had not thought it would be so difficult to
enjoy myself without you. It was impossible. It is only three, but I
could not stand it any longer. I escaped before the cotillion. If you
only knew how hollow and stupid it all seemed to me! How dull I thought
the men's conversation, how ludicrous the affectations of the women!
What are all these people compared to you! No, I will never go out
again without you. Come, Wilhelm, and help me to undress. I will not
have Anne about me now--nobody--only you."

Had she been drinking champagne at the ball? Had the lights, the music,
the dancing, the perfumes, her own verses gone to her head? Whatever
was the cause, her nerves were certainly very highly strung, and only
calmed down when the morning was well advanced, and