rld and with God. Now He sends me
His death-angel."

She struggled with the lump in her throat. "You must be indeed a prey
to illusions, if you mistake an Englishwoman for Azrael."

"_Ach_, why was I so bitter against England? I was only once in
England, years ago. I knew nobody, and London seemed so full of fog
and Englishmen. Now England has avenged herself beautifully. She sends
me you. Others too mount the hundred and five steps. I am an annexe to
the Paris Exhibition. Remains of Heinrich Heine. A very pilgrimage of
the royal _demi-monde_! A Russian princess brings the hateful odor of
her pipe," he said with scornful satisfaction, "an Italian princess
babbles of _her_ aches and pains, as if in competition with mine. But
the gold medal would fall to _my_ nerves, I am convinced, if they were
on view at the Exhibition. No, no, don't cry; I meant you to laugh.
Don't think of me as you see me now; pretend to me I am as you first
knew me. But how fine and beautiful _you_ have grown; even to my
fraction of an eye, which sees the sunlight as through black gauze.
Fancy little Lucy has a husband; a husband--and the poodle still takes
three baths a day. Are you happy, darling? are you happy?"

She nodded. It seemed a sacrilege to claim happiness.

"_Das ist schoen!_ Yes, you were always so merry. God be thanked! How
refreshing to find one woman with a heart, and that her husband's.
Here the women have a metronome under their corsets, which beats time,
but not music. _Himmel!_ What a whiff of my youth you bring me! Does
the sea still roll green at the end of Boulogue pier, and do the
sea-gulls fly? while I lie here, a Parisian Prometheus, chained to my
bed-post. Ah, had I only the bliss of a rock with the sky above me!
But I must not complain; for six years before I moved here I had
nothing but a ceiling to defy. Now my balcony gives sideways on the
Champs-Elysees, and sometimes I dare to lie outside on a sofa and peer
at beautiful, beautiful Paris, as she sends up her soul in sparkling
fountains, and incarnates herself in pretty women, who trip along like
dance music. Look!"

To please him she went to a window and saw, upon the narrow
iron-grilled balcony, a tent of striped chintz, like the awning of a
cafe, supported by a light iron framework. Her eyes were blurred by
unshed tears, and she divined rather than saw the far-stretching
Avenue, palpitating with the fevered life of the Great Exhibition
year; the intoxicating