would result from such
experiment. Yet there was no blinking the fact that the desire had been
growing in Hadria to test her powers of attraction to the utmost, so as
to discover exactly their range and calibre. She felt rather as a boy
might feel who had come upon a cask of gunpowder, and longed to set a
match to it, just to see exactly how high it would blow off the roof.
She had kept the growing instincts at bay, being determined that nothing
avoidable should come between her and her purpose. And then--well
considering in what light most men, in their hearts, regarded women--if
one might judge from their laws and their conduct and their literature,
and the society that they had organized--admiration from this sex was a
thing scarcely to be endured. Yet superficially, it was gratifying.

Why it should be so, was difficult to say, since it scarcely imposed
upon one's very vanity. Yet it was easy enough to understand how women
who had no very dominant interest in life, might come to have a thirst
for masculine homage and for power over men till it became like the
gambler's passion for play; and surely it had something in it of the
same character.

The steamer was stopping now at St. Cloud. Yielding to an impulse,
Hadria alighted at the landing-stage and walked on through the little
town towards the palace.

The sun was deliciously hot; its rays struck through to the skin, and
seemed to pour in life and well-being. The wayfarer stood looking up the
steep green avenue, resting for a moment, before she began the ascent.
At the top of the hill she paused again to look out over Paris, which
lay spread far and wide beneath her, glittering and brilliant; the
Eiffel Tower rising above domes and spires, in solitary inconsequence.
It seemed to her as if she were looking upon the world and upon life,
for the last time. A few weeks hence, would she be able to stand there
and see the gay city at her feet? She plunged back along one of the
converging avenues, yielding to the fascination of green alleys leading
one knows not whither. Wandering on for some time, she finally drifted
down hill again, towards the stately little garden near the palace. She
was surprised by a hurrying step behind her, and Jouffroy's voice in her
ear. She was about to greet him in her usual fashion, when he stopped
her by plunging head foremost into a startling tirade--about her art,
and her country, and her genius, and his despair; and finally his
resolv