a course,--knew
himself a sufficiently good actor to play the game at least well enough
to satisfy his artistic taste. But he did not yield to the temptation;
had he done so he would have formed a more moral emblem for the
edification of my readers than I am now able to provide; and they must
face instead the uncomfortable fact that out of this long and immoral
liaison between a prince and his mistress certain moral values held
good, and that being in need of a sincere friend and confidante he found
it in the woman from whom he was about to separate.

He crossed to her side, and taking her hand kissed it with more
frequency and fervor than he had kissed her face, and heard then her
breath struggling against tears. She reached up her other hand and began
stroking his head; and it is life's truth that these two still found
attraction and comfort the one in the other.

"Then you are going back again?" whispered Max.

She nodded, saying "yes" afterwards on a catch of breath.

"When?"

She looked at him wistfully. "I didn't want to go--yet."

"Why should you?"

"It wouldn't worry you?"

"Not at all. Very much the reverse."

"I should want to see you, though."

Max smiled. "You mean, then, shouldn't _I_ worry _you_----"

"I suppose I did mean that," she said, viewing him speculatively.

Then Max was tempted to show off. "Who gave me my first lesson in not
worrying?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," she admitted, "but then, you see, I was yours. It has to be
different now."

"I want it to be different too," he said; and as by that statement he
wished to convey important inner meanings, he spoke solemnly.

She looked at him radiant, half incredulous--the pious wish shining in
her eyes. "Oh, Max!" she cried amazed, "has it come to you too, then?
Has Our Lady----"

But Max shook his head. "Your Lady is not my lady," he gently confessed.

"Oh!" her voice went down into the deeps of despondency. "Oh! is that
what you mean?"

A solemn nod from Max informed her that it was.

"You always told me that it would happen some day."

"I hoped I should have gone."

"And I," said Max, "am glad that you have not. Selfish of me, isn't
it?" Then he kissed her hand again.

She began a homely mopping of her face.

"Then it doesn't matter how I look now?" she commented, and paused. "How
am I looking?"

"Well, and as dear as ever," he replied.

"That isn't what I wanted to know. You know it isn't."

"You are looking," he said