is nothing at all. So primitive and uncivilized. There were
republics before the monarchies: Paradise, with Adam and Eve, was a
republic of beasts and animals; Adam was president...."

"Don't be an idiot. What did he write?"

"Nothing particular. But what a mad notion of his, to send in his papers
as captain of the guards! How did he come to do it? Tell me, what
happened between you two?"

They were walking through the light again and she did not answer; then,
in the darkness:

"Nothing," she said; and her voice no longer had that affected smartness
of brutality and _sans-gene_, but melted in a plaintive note of
melancholy.

"Nothing?" said Dutri. "Then why...?"

"I don't know. We had talked a great deal together and so gradually
began to feel that we could no longer make each other happy. I really
can't remember the reason, really I can't."

"A question of psychology therefore. This comes of all that sentiment.
You're both very foolish. Meddling with psychology when you're in love
is very imprudent, because then you start psychologizing on yourselves
and cut up your love into little bits, like a tart of which you are
afraid you won't be able to get enough to eat. Practise psychology on
somebody else, that's better: as I do on you, Alexa."

"Come, don't talk nonsense, Dutri. Don't you know anything more about
him?"

"Nothing more, except that he has made himself impossible for our set.
And that perhaps through your fault, Alexa, and through your
psychology."

She walked silently, leaning on his arm; her mouth trembled, her
Egyptian eyes grew moist:

"Oh!" she said; and she suddenly made the equerry stand still, grasped
his arm tightly and looked him straight in the face with her moist eyes.
"I loved him, I loved him, as I have never loved any one! I ... I still
love him! If he were to write me one word, I should forget who I was, my
husband, my position, I should go to him, go to him.... Oh, Dutri, do
you know what it means, in our artificial existence, in which everything
is so false around you, to ... to ... to have really loved any one? And
to know that you have that feeling as a sheer truth in your heart? Oh, I
tell you, I adore him, I still adore him ... and one word from him, one
word...."

"Lucky that he's more sensible than you, Alexa, and will never say that
word. Besides, he has no money: what would you do if you were with him?
Go on the stage together? What a volcano you are, Alexa, what a
vo