usic, and calling in
her clear voice, a servant heard and answered her, and brought from
the chateau a Spanish guitar. To this Gaston Cheverny sang. Presently,
in response to the silent request of Francezka's eyes, and an eloquent
assent from his own, he sang that song to which I always thought they
attached a fond and secret meaning:

O Richard, O mon roi!

Francezka, with her white scarf about her dark head, listened in her
favorite attitude, her cheek upon her hand; listened with an air that
would have made any man's heart beat the quicker for it.

We did not leave the garden until late, and then it was time for us to
go back to the Manoir Cheverny. On the way through the park and
fields, under the harvest moon, Gaston Cheverny raved as only lovers
rave; but I, of all men, excused him, knowing the object of his love.

The time sped away during that fortnight, albeit I was separated from
Count Saxe. We saw the ladies at the chateau of Capello daily. The
extraordinary kindness of Mademoiselle Capello toward me rather
increased. It seemed as if she lay bare her mind, her heart, her soul,
to me. I was not, and never could be, her lover, but I was her friend.
I found out many things about her that I did not know before. One
was--whether it were a defect or not I do not know--she had few
intimates. She was not only so differently placed, but so different in
herself from most young creatures of her age, that she had not much in
common with them. She confessed to me more than once that she had been
disappointed in feminine friendships.

"When I think I have found a friend and companion I invariably find in
the background a brother or a cousin--some one who wants to rule
here," she said to me one day.

"And whenever you find one of the other sex who seems to know what
friendship is, does he not also resolve himself into a lover after a
while?" I asked.

Francezka laughed and blushed.

"All, except you," she answered. "That is why I turn to you with so
much confidence, Babache. You alone of the whole wide world, as I know
it, can I call my friend, without any admixture of love or flattery.
You alone ever found fault with me, or told me my way was not a
reasonable way."

"But I can not now recall ever having dared to find fault with you,
Mademoiselle," I said, cudgeling my brains.

"Oh, it matters not exactly in words; but I know you would find fault
with me, if you thought I was wrong, and