.

"It puts me in a strange and curious mood when I ramble along the
shore in the twilight. Behind me are the flat dunes, before me the
vast, heaving, immeasurable ocean, and above me the sky like an
infinite crystal dome. Then I seem to be a very insect; and yet my
soul expands to the size of the world. The high simplicity of Nature
which surrounds me, elevates and oppresses me at the same time, more
so than any other scene, however sublime. There never was any
cathedral dome vast enough for me."

She stopped short, as if suddenly realizing she had stumbled upon
dangerous ground.

And at that moment the Countess picked up the ladies with her eyes and
they rose, to leave the men over their cigars. So Paul was left, to be
drawn, willy-nilly, into a discussion of an international alliance,
which did not interest him in the least.

Later when the men joined the ladies in the _salon_, Paul sought his
sprite, but she was careful, or so it seemed, not to be left alone
with him. And it was not until he said good-night that he could
express to her the wish to see her again.

"You are such an uncertain lady," he said to her, smiling, "so
restless within the confines of a town-house, that I hope you will let
me call to-morrow--before you suddenly go dashing off to climb some
peak, or to visit some foreign coast."

"Come for tea, to-morrow, if you wish." She looked up at him
quickly--searchingly, Paul thought--and his blood raced madly through
his veins.

Adieus were said, and Paul found himself again in his taximeter cab.
In a state of mind quite different from that which had obsessed him on
his way to the dinner, he arrived once more at the _hotel_.

"Ah! these mad English!" Paul's chauffeur said to himself as he
pocketed an extravagant _pourboire_. "We see too few of them! Milord
Rosbif must have been having some famous old wine over in the
_Faubourg St. Germain_, is it not so?" he asked himself.

But it was the more exalted intoxication of the soul that sent Paul up
the steps with the elastic stride of youth.

* * * * *

Who was she? Paul did not know, even now. Mademoiselle Vseslavitch had
said nothing of her family or her home. Beyond the fact that she was
Russian, and a friend of the Dalmatian Ambassador's wife--herself a
Slav--Paul was still ignorant. Indeed, for all he knew, she might be
some poor relation--lack of fortune was the only possible reason he
could ascribe for her