"I am relieved by your cold attitude. That is the
folly of being noble! One cannot be attentive to those beneath one save
at a loss of self-respect. Bah! my Czar, could he but see, would call
his Storri disgraced by the mere nearness of such as you."

"And you name your Czar to me!" returned the San Reve, now sneering
calm, her cool contralto restored; "to me, a French woman! And your
nobility, too--that thing of Caspian mud! Storri, the San Reves were
soldiers with Napoleon; your noble kind ran from them like hares. The
San Reves stabled their horses in the audience chambers of your Czars."

The San Reve rippled off these periods in quiet, invincible scorn.
Storri, beaten, frightened, began to whine. His bluster, his bombast,
his nobility, his affected elevations, were alike broken down. He
professed love; he said that he had wronged his San Reve. His San Reve
was a goddess, a flower, a star! Would she make her Storri
desolate?--her Storri who would die for love of her!

The San Reve became sensibly composed; her falcon brow relaxed, her
spirit took on a tranquil frame, her anger was cooled by the cooing
contrition of Storri. The San Reve permitted herself to be soothed.

"Let us go no more in that direction," said the San Reve. "Such
tauntings are but a childish barter of words."

The San Reve delivered this sentiment in a serene, high way that brought
her honor. Then she lighted a cigarette and blew peaceful rings. Storri,
encouraged in his soul by the return of his San Reve to reason, solaced
himself with a fresh cigar. The two smoked in silent truce.

"It was a love quarrel, my San Reve!" said Storri.

"Only a love quarrel!" assented San Reve.

Silence and smoke; with Storri timid, shrinking from fresh offense and
further outbreak.

Storri, fearing all who had no fear of him, feared the San Reve. Nor
were his apprehensions void of warrant; the San Reve was of that hot and
blinded strain which loves and slays.

"Your father dead," said Storri, pretending a perking interest, "your
father dead, my San Reve, what then became of you?"

"I fell into the hands of a doting old architect of Paris. He was good
to me; it was with him I learned my trade. No, I did not love him; but I
was grateful. He died, and I came to Ottawa as a draughtswoman for the
young engineer, Balue. I did not love Balue; he was tame. And then
Ottawa, with those sodden Canadians, their Scotch whiskey, and narrow
lives framed in with snow--