wo sentiments in our
happy marriage."

"I'll explain to you what it is that has made you and Thaddeus such good
friends," said Clementine. "The difference in the lives you lead
comes from your tastes and from necessity; from your likings, not your
positions. As far as one can judge from merely seeing a man once, and
also from what you tell me, there are times when the subaltern might
become the superior."

"Oh, Paz is truly my superior," said Adam, naively; "I have no advantage
over him except mere luck."

His wife kissed him for the generosity of those words.

"The extreme care with which he hides the grandeur of his feelings is
one form of his superiority," continued the count. "I said to him once:
'You are a sly one; you have in your heart a vast domain within which
you live and think.' He has a right to the title of count; but in Paris
he won't be called anything but captain."

"The fact is that the Florentine of the middle-ages has reappeared in
our century," said the countess. "Dante and Michael Angelo are in him."

"That's the very truth," cried Adam. "He is a poet in soul."

"So here I am, married to two Poles," said the young countess, with a
gesture worthy of some genius of the stage.

"Dear child!" said Adam, pressing her to him, "it would have made me
very unhappy if my friend did not please you. We were both rather afraid
of it, he and I, though he was delighted at my marriage. You will
make him very happy if you tell him that you love him,--yes, as an old
friend."

"I'll go and dress, the day is so fine; and we will all three ride
together," said Clementine, ringing for her maid.

II

Paz was leading so subterranean a life that the fashionable world of
Paris asked who he was when the Comtesse Laginska was seen in the Bois
de Boulogne riding between her husband and a stranger. During the ride
Clementine insisted that Thaddeus should dine with them. This caprice of
the sovereign lady compelled Paz to make an evening toilet. Clementine
dressed for the occasion with a certain coquetry, in a style that
impressed even Adam himself when she entered the salon where the two
friends awaited her.

"Comte Paz," she said, "you must go with us to the Opera."

This was said in the tone which, coming from a woman means: "If you
refuse we shall quarrel."

"Willingly, madame," replied the captain. "But as I have not the fortune
of a count, have the kindness to call me captain."

"Very good, capta