oth been
brought up after the same fashion, we are probably much alike. Ah,
Monsieur," she went on, defiantly, "is it the Quaker in you--Monsieur
Jefferson has told me that your mother was a Quakeress--that makes you
hate the world, the flesh, and the devil so? Is Paris, then, so much
more wicked than your Virginia? Are we so different from the women of
your world?" She went up to him and put her beautiful face close to his
disturbed one. "Are _you_ so different from the men of our world,
Monsieur, or is it only those grand yeux of yours, with their serious
expression, that make you seem different--and better?" and her eyes
smiled mockingly into his. "Pshaw, sir, you make me feel like a naughty
school-girl when you reprove me so. Upon my word, I don't know why I
submit to it! Though I am younger than you, sir, I feel a hundred years
older in experience--and yet--and yet--there is something about you--"
She broke off and again tapped the gravel impatiently with her foot.

"I have said nothing, Madame." Calvert was quiet and unsmiling.

"No, Monsieur, 'tis that I most object to--you keep silence, but your
eyes reprove me. Oh, I have seen you looking at me with that reproving
glance many times when you did not know I saw it! Am I to blame, sir,
for being of the great world of which you do not approve? Am I to be
rebuked--even silently--for coming here with Monsieur de St. Aulaire, by
_you_, Monsieur?" Suddenly she dropped her defiant tone and, leaning
against the edge of the marble basin, looked intently and silently at
the splashing water gleaming white in the moonlight.

"Can you not see?--Do you not understand, Monsieur?" she said at length,
hurriedly, and in a low voice. "Do not misjudge me. I have been brought
up in this court life, which is the life of intrigue and dissimulation
and wickedness--yes, wickedness! We know nothing else. There is no one
in our world so pure as to be above suspicion. The walls of this great
palace, thick and massive as they are, cannot keep out the whispers of
calumny against the Queen herself. Is it so different in your country?
Sometimes I abhor this life and would hear of another. Sometimes I hate
all this," she went on, speaking as if more to herself than to Calvert.
"As for Monsieur de St. Aulaire, I loathe him! I thank you, Monsieur,
for ridding me of his presence. If I seemed ungrateful, believe me, I
was not! 'Tis but my pride which stands no rebuke. But it is late! Will
you do m