bout it, so that
they got plenty of air--he turned to her.

"Now, do you know what I am going to do with you, madame? I shall only
unfold my plans bit by bit, and watch your face to see if I have chosen
well. I am going to take you first to the Petit Trianon, and we are
going to walk leisurely through the rooms. I am not going to worry you
with much sight-seeing and tourists and lessons of history, but I want
you to glance at this setting of the life picture of poor Marie
Antoinette, because it is full of sentiment and it will make you
appreciate more the _hameau_ and her playground afterwards. Something
tells me you would rather see these things than all the fine pictures
and salons of the stiff chateau."

"Oh yes," said Theodora; "you have guessed well this time."

"Then here we are, almost arrived," he said, presently.

They had been going very fast, and could see the square, white house in
front of them, and when they alighted at the gates she found the
guardian was an old friend of Lord Bracondale's, and they were left free
to wander alone in the rooms between the batches of tourists.

But every one knows the Petit Trianon, and can surmise how its beauties
appealed to Theodora.

"Oh, the poor, poor queen!" she said, with a sad ring in her expressive
voice, when they came to the large salon; "and she sat here and played
on her harpsichord--and I wonder if she and Fersen were ever alone--and
I wonder if she really loved him--"

Then she stopped suddenly; she had told herself she must never talk
about love to any one. It was a subject that she must have nothing to do
with. It could never come her way, now she was married to Josiah Brown,
and it would be unwise to discuss it, even in the abstract.

The same beautiful, wild-rose tint tinged the white velvet as once
before when she had spoken of _Jean d'Agreve_, and again Lord Bracondale
experienced a sensation of satisfaction.

But this time he would not let her talk about the weather. The subject
of love interested him, too.

"Yes, I am sure she did," he said, "and I always shall believe Fersen
was her lover; no life, even a queen's, can escape one love."

"I suppose not," said Theodora, very low, and she looked out of the
window.

"Love is not a passion which asks our leave if he may come or no, you
see," Hector continued, trying to control his voice to sound
dispassionate and discursive--he knew he must not frighten her. "Love
comes in a thousand unkno