sun,
was dispelled. The merest inflection in the Duchessa's voice had the
power of casting him down to depths of heart-searching despair, or
lifting him to realms of intoxicating joy. And it must be confessed that
the past fortnight had been spent almost continuously in these realms.
Also, if he had sunk to the depths of despair, it was rather by reason of
an ultra-sensitive imagination on his own part than by any fault of the
Duchessa's. But then, as Antony would have declared, the position of a
subject to his sovereign is a very different matter from the position of
the sovereign to the subject. The Duchessa could be certain of his
loyalty. It was for her to give or withhold favours as it pleased her. It
was a different matter for him.

It is not easy for a man, who has lived a very lonely life, to believe in
a reciprocal friendship where he himself is concerned. A curious
admixture of shyness and diffidence, the outcome of his lonely life,
prevented him from imagining that the Duchessa could desire his
friendship in the smallest degree as he desired hers. To him, the
friendship she had accorded him had become the most vital thing in his
existence, quite apart from that vague and intoxicating dream, which he
scarcely dared to confess in the faintest whisper to his heart. He knew
that her friendship appeared essential to his very life. But how could he
for one moment imagine that his friendship was essential to her? It could
not be, though he would cheerfully have laid down his life for her, have
undergone torture for her sake.

Knowing, therefore, that his friendship was not essential to her
happiness, yet knowing what her friendship meant to him, he was as
ultra-sensitive as a lonely child. His soul sprang forward to receive her
gifts, but the merest imagined hint of a rebuff would have sent him back
to that loneliness he had learned to look upon as his birthright. Not
that he would have gone back to that loneliness with a hurt sense of
injury. That must be clearly understood to understand Antony. To have
felt injury, would have been tantamount to saying that he had had a right
to the friendship, and it was just this very right that Antony could not
realize as in the least existent. He would have gone back with an ache,
it is true, but with a brave face, and an overwhelming and life-long
gratitude for the temporary joy. That is at the present moment; of later,
one cannot feel so certain.

To-day, however, loneline