me public school or other, the name is
immaterial, and when he was on the point of entering Oxford, the Swiss
lady or her husband, I forget which--at any rate, somebody died. Do you
follow me, Eden? Well, he then learned that instead of being the son of
the people by whom he had been brought up, he was not their son at all.
And now comes the curious part of it. It seems that the Swiss lady had
been, in years gone by, companion or governess, or something of that
sort, to the Grand-Duchess Thyra of Gothland, who, as you know, became
the wife of the King of Suabia. She died, by the way, a year or two ago.
However, the Swiss lady was her companion or something of the kind, and
in consequence was placed in close relations with her. In fact, she was,
I suppose, what you might call a confidante. In any event, the
Grand-Duchess happened to have for music-teacher a good-looking young
German who took her fancy. The result of it all was that the Swiss lady
agreed to pretend that the offspring was her own, and was handsomely
rewarded for her pains. She left Gothland with the child, and it was not
until she died that Usselex learned that instead of being her son, he
was grandson of the Emperor. He had the bar-sinister, of course, but the
ancestry was there all the same. I don't know that I or any other man
would envy him it; but perhaps it is better than none. However, as soon
as Usselex learned the facts, he packed up and came over here. Now you
have that part of his existence in a nutshell. What do you say to it?"
And Mr. Menemon coughed again, and glanced inquiringly at his daughter.

"I say he is so base I might have known he was of royal blood."

"Eden, you are singularly unjust."

"But what does his birth matter to me?" she cried. "It was not for the
presence or absence of forefathers that I put my hand in his. It was for
the man himself, for what he seemed to me, and when I find that I have
been mistaken in him, when in return for my love I get deceit, when he
leaves me for another woman, and has the infamy to ask me to receive
that woman, then I say, that whether he be the son of a serf or the son
of a king, our ways divide--"

"Eden--"

"Yes, our ways divide."

Urged by her irritation, she still paced the room, graceful as a leopard
is, and every whit as unconstrained. But now, abruptly she halted before
a portrait that hung from the wall. For a moment she gazed at it, then
pointing to it with arm outstretched, she tu