to the altar and sacrificed upon it as an animal is led in sacrificial
rites--without premonition or understanding, only wondering (perhaps) to
find itself so groomed and garlanded, so flattered and adored. She had
hardly known Victor before she was given to him in marriage by Imperial
ukase ... to get rid of her, probably, for some inscrutable reason related
to the mysterious circumstances of her parentage.

And now after six years of hell with her husband and one of mourning in
solitude for her love that was lost, she was coming back to life again ...
at last!

She lifted up arms that might have been a dream of Phidias chiselled in
Parian marble, and stretched them luxuriously. She was superbly alive,
indeed--and henceforth she meant to live. Only she must be careful to
retain her looks ... If Youth must surely go, Beauty must linger and reign
long in its stead.

A maid, a comely creature, trim and smart in black and white, with that
vividly coloured prettiness which is too often the omen of premature
decline into the fat and florid thirties, fetched a wrap and settled it
upon Sofia's shoulders.

Long and dark, it disguised her figure as completely as it covered her
toilette. She nodded her satisfaction, and accepted the veil which she had
desired to complete her disguise, a thing of Spanish lace, black and ample,
like a mantilla. But before donning it she delayed one minute more before
the mirror.

"Therese! Am I still beautiful?"

"Madame la princesse is always beautiful."

"As beautiful as I used to be?"

"But madame la princesse grows more lovely every day."

"Beautiful enough to-night, to keep out of jail, do you think?"

To the mirth in the voice of her mistress the maid responded with a smile
demure and discreet.

"Oh, madame!" was all she said; but the manner of her saying it was rarely
eloquent.

Sofia laughed lightly, and affectionately pinched the cheek of the maid.

"And you, my little one," she said in liquid French--"you yourself are too
ravishingly pretty to keep out of trouble. Do you know that?"

Her little one looked more than ever demure as she enquired after the
hidden meaning of madame la princesse.

"Because you will marry too soon, Therese--too soon some worthless man will
persuade you to dedicate all those charms to him alone."

"Oh, madame!"

"Is it not so?"

"Who knows, madame?" said Therese, as who should say: "What must be, must."

"Then there is a man! I suspected a