of my kisses, and I had not yet come to the age for
such bargains.

Then we were left alone, Victoria and I, to sit together for a while in
the dusk; and, sitting there, we totted up that day's gains. They were
uncertain, yet seemed great. All that had passed I told Victoria, save
what in loyalty to my countess I might not; Victoria imparted to me the
story of the knuckle-rapping. For her an added joy lay in the fact that
on this occasion, if ever, she had deserved the affliction; she had been
gloriously naughty, and gloried in it now; did not her sinfulness
enhance the significance of this revolution? So carried away were we by
our triumph that now again, after a long interval, we allowed our
imagination to paint royalty in glowing colours, and our Arabian Nights
and fairy tales seemed at last not altogether cunningly wrought
deceptions. When we had gone to bed, again we met, I creeping into her
room, and rousing her to ask whether in truth a new age had come and the
yoke of Krak been broken from off our backs. Victoria sat up in bed and
discussed the problem gravely. For me she was sanguine, for herself less
so; for, said she, they go on worrying the girls for ever so long. "She
won't rap your knuckles any more," I suggested, fastening on a certain
and tangible advantage. Victoria agreed that in all likelihood her
knuckles would henceforth be inviolate; and she did not deny such gain
as lay there. Thus in the end I won her to cheerfulness, and we parted
merrily, declaring to one another that we were free; and I knew that in
some way the pretty American countess had lent a hand to knocking off
our chains.

Free! A wonderful word that, whether you use it of a child, a man, a
state, a world, an universe! That evening we seemed free. In after-days
I received from old Hammerfeldt (a great statesman, as history will one
day allow) some lectures on the little pregnant, powerful, empty word.
He had some right to speak of freedom; he had seen it fought for by
Napoleon, praised by Talleyrand, bought by Castlereagh, interpreted by
Metternich. Should he not then know what it was, its value, its potency,
and its sweetness, why men died for it, and delicate women who loved
them cheered them on? Once also in later years a beautiful woman cried
to me, with white arms outstretched, that to be free was life, was all
in all, the heart's one satisfaction. Her I pressed, seeking to know
wherein lay the attraction and allurement that fir