stful pillowing of her head on
his breast, the soulful content as she softly breathed there, instead of
that wild panting of a moment before! Blinded to the world, he fervently
thanked God that he had been made.

He touched her white brow lovingly, and gently tilted back her chin.
Again her eyes lifted, confidingly. His head bent. She waited. His lips
drew nearer to hers, very slowly. He was held in a deep reverence, in an
awe of something sacred. It was a rite of adoration before a shrine. And
she, seeing that look in his eyes, wanted him to know that the shrine
was truly as pure as in his oblivion to the world he for the moment
believed. For later memory would come to him, and that she could not
bear. He must know now, before their lips met. Yet a good woman may not
brazenly avow that rumor and evidence speak what is false. But for all
that he still must know, in some way. With a playful gesture she
intercepted his lips against the soft palm of her hand, her eyes the
while holding his in their communion of soul. And thus she spoke,
prettily, saucily, and blushing the while,

"And are you so sure, sir, that you are the first?"

She had looked for protestation, and she would have answered. And he
would have believed. He must have believed. But instead the spell of
faith broke sharply. Poisoned memory rushed in before it could be
belied. She could see the tragedy of it in his changed look, in his
ashen face, cold and gray. He thought her question a gloating over his
weakness, and it revolted him. He was, then, but a caprice for her. He
remembered that after all he had only happened by, and that she was
returning to Maximilian. But still she was hardly less tempting. He had
a moment of cruel conflict with himself, which left him with a sullen
rage against the princelet in Mexico, against the order of princelets,
that thus fell a deathly pall between an honest man and a true love
kiss. Yet, she was there in his arms, dear and fearfully clinging
and--no less tempting.

"Take this woman to my mother?" the question rose.

As one might close the eyes of his dead wife, he loosed the arms about
his neck, and let them fall at her side. Once free, he leaped to the
door, flung it open, and was gone.

CHAPTER VII

A CROP OF COLONELS

"And thus they led a quiet life
During their princely raine."
--_Ballad of King Cophetua and the Beggar-Maid._

Some years after the events recorded here, there appea