, they never wholly lose; very manly and heroic in time of need and
danger, they are by nature peculiarly exposed to treasons and deceptions
which astonish but do not alter them. Since man, in the progress of
time, must either harden or break to pieces, the hero in them is of
iron; but, on the other hand, their hearts are easily wounded by the
cruel hand of some woman or the careless one of a child.

Andras Zilah had not yet loved deeply, as it was in his nature to
love. More or less passing caprices had not dried up the spring of real
passion which was at the bottom of his heart. But he had not sought this
love; for he adored his Hungary as he would have loved a woman, and the
bitter recollection of her defeat gave him the impression of a love that
had died or been cruelly betrayed.

Yanski, on the whole, had not greatly troubled himself to demonstrate
mathematically or philosophically that a "hussar pupil" was an absolute
necessity to him. People can not be forced, against their will, to
marry; and the Prince, after all, was free, if he chose, to let the name
of Zilah die with him.

"Taking life as it is," old Varhely would growl, "perhaps it isn't
necessary to bring into the world little beings who never asked to come
here." And yet breaking off in his pessimism, and with a vision before
his eyes of another Andras, young, handsome, leading his hussars to the
charge "and yet, it is a pity, Andras, it is a pity."

The decisions of men are more often dependent upon chance than upon
their own will. Prince Andras received an invitation to dinner one day
from the little Baroness Dinati, whom he liked very much, and whose
husband, Orso Dinati, one of the defenders of Venice in the time of
Manin, had been his intimate friend. The house of the Baroness was a
very curious place; the reporter Jacquemin, who was there at all
times, testing the wines and correcting the menus, would have called
it "bizarre." The Baroness received people in all circles of society;
oddities liked her, and she did not dislike oddities. Very honest, very
spirituelle, an excellent woman at heart, she gave evening parties,
readings from unheard-of books, and performances of the works of
unappreciated musicians; and the reporters, who came to absorb her
salads and drink her punch, laughed at her in their journals before
their supper was digested.

The Prince, as we have said, was very fond of the Baroness, with an
affection which was almost fraterna