burned upon the great hearth, and already, the room was shadowy
with the coming dusk. There were two windows, one looking out upon the
marvelous spiral staircase, the other facing the sunset. In a moment
or two, Francezka came out of the inner room. She wore a white robe
and her hair was neither dressed nor powdered, but braided down her
back, as the Brabant peasant women wear theirs. Perhaps it was
weariness on her part, but never was there a creature more changed
than she, from the radiant being of the night before. She looked sad
and dispirited, and the welcome in her eyes when she greeted me
reminded me painfully of how she had met me in the sorrowful years of
the past. But I chose not to see too much of this.

"It is the greatest good in the world to me, Madame," I said, "seeing
you so happy and so admired. Any woman on earth might have envied you
last night."

Francezka smiled a little--she was then seated and looking into the
fire.

"Yes, I ever loved to act, and I felt no more tremor last night,
although I was to play opposite the great Monsieur Voltaire himself,
than in those days, so long ago, when I played opposite the baker's
boy in the garden of the Hotel Kirkpatrick. It would have been better
for me, perhaps, if I had been born to earn my living as Mademoiselle
Lecouvreur did, on the stage, than to have been the heiress of the
Capellos."

I was thunderstruck when she said this. I had never known her to
express a wish for any other station in life than the one to which she
had been born; and, indeed, she had no reason to do so. And while I
was wondering at this speech, she astounded me still more, by saying
calmly:

"It is, however, God's mercy that I can act; for I am acting a part
every hour and moment of my life--the part of a happy woman--when I am
of all of God's creatures, the most miserable."

She spoke quite softly and composedly, but I guessed readily that she
had sent for me that she might have a friend to whom to pour out her
overcharged heart.

"Gaston Cheverny," was all I could say, meaning that he must be the
source of her misery.

"There is no fault at all to be found with my husband. He is kindness
and devotion itself. He likes the world--so do I. He is gallant, is
complimentary to the ladies; I would not have him otherwise. I have
only to express a wish, and, if possible, it is fulfilled. Yet, I am
the wretchedest of women. For, Babache, I believe--now, do not laugh
at me, Babac