iterary life, one of those errant plums
from the political tree that now and then find their way to the right
basket. He was named for an excellent diplomatic post. His friends
congratulated him and talked a good deal about "material" and
opportunities for "unique local color;" his wife chattered unceasingly
about gowns and social details, while he armed himself, with the
listless reticence that was become habit, to face new responsibilities
and rather flavorless experiences. He had so withdrawn himself of late
to the inner creative life that he moved in a kind of phantasmagoria of
outer unrealities. It was the nearest to a comfortable adjustment for
the mis-mating of such a marriage as his, but it was not the best of
preparations for the discharge of public duties, and he walked toward
his new future with reluctant feet, abstractedly. In some such mood as
this, his mind bent on a problem of arrangement of fiction puppets,
seeing "men as trees walking," he found himself one day making his bows
at a court function. Along the line of royal highnesses and grand
duchesses with his wife he moved, himself a string-pulled puppet,
until--but who, in heaven's name is this?

For one mad moment, as he looked into her eyes, he thought the tightened
cord he sometimes felt tugging at his tired brain had snapped, and the
images of sight and memory gone hopelessly confused. She stood near the
end of the line with the princesses of secondary rank, and the jewels in
her hair were not more scintillant than her eyes as he bent over her
hand. She went a little pale, but she greeted him bravely, and when they
found themselves unobserved for a moment she spoke to him in her soft,
careful English:

"You recognized me, you remember, for a play actor, and now you are come
from the world's end to see me perform on my tiny stage! Alas, dear
critic, since my last excursion, I am no longer letter perfect in my
part!"

They met but once again. It was in the crush of guests in the great hall
where her old Prince, in the splendor of his decoration-covered coat,
was waiting to hand her to her carriage. There was a brief time in which
to snatch the doubtful sweetness of a few hurried words. She was leaving
in the early morning for the petty Balkan province where her husband
held a miniature sway, over a handful of half-savage subjects. Hardly
more than a renewal of greeting and a farewell, and she was gone!

As the old Prince wrapped her more careful