her and yourself. These two loved each other devotedly. Well,
what more? You are the result of a happy marriage. You are beautiful,
you are splendid, by that reason."

"Perhaps. Even when I was sixteen, I was beautiful," she mused. "I have
heard rumors of that. But I say to you that then I was only a beautiful
animal. Also, I was a vicious animal I had in my heart all the malice
which my mother never spoke. I felt in my soul the wish to injure women,
to punish men, to torment them, to make them pay! To set even those
balances of torture!--ah, that was my ambition! I had not forgotten
that, when I first met you, when I first heard of--her, the woman whom
you love, whom already in your savage strong way you have wedded--the
woman whose vows I spoke with her--I--I, Helena von Ritz, with history
such as mine!

"Father, father,"--she turned to him swiftly; "rise--go! I can not now
speak before you. Leave us alone until I call!"

Obedient as though he had been the child and she the parent, the old man
rose and tottered feebly from the room.

"There are things a woman can not say in the presence of a parent," she
said, turning to me. Her face twitched. "It takes all my bravery to talk
to you."

"Why should you? There is not need. Do not!"

"Ah, I must, because it is fair," said she. "I have lost, lost! I told
you I would pay my wager."

After a time she turned her face straight toward mine and went on with
her old splendid bravery.

"So, now, you see, when I was young and beautiful I had rank and money.
I had brains. I had hatred of men. I had contempt for the aristocracy.
My heart was peasant after all. My principles were those of the
republican. Revolution was in my soul, I say. Thwarted, distorted,
wretched, unscrupulous, I did what I could to make hell for those who
had made hell for us. I have set dozens of men by the ears. I have been
promised in marriage to I know not how many. A dozen men have fought to
the death in duels over me. For each such death I had not even a
thought. The more troubles I made, the happier I was. Oh, yes, in time I
became known--I had a reputation; there is no doubt of that.

"But still the organized aristocracy had its revenge--it had its will of
me, after all. There came to me, as there had to my mother, an imperial
order. In punishment for my fancies and vagaries, I was condemned to
marry a certain nobleman. That was the whim of the new emperor,
Ferdinand, the degenerate. He took t