in the divine harmony of his talk,
his love, his caresses. His eyes have never met mine without a gleam of
happiness in them; there has always been a bright smile on his lips for
me. On deck, his voice rises above the thunder of storms and the
tumult of battle; but here below it is soft and melodious as Rossini's
music--for he has Rossini's music sent for me. I have everything that
woman's caprice can imagine. My wishes are more than fulfilled. In
short, I am a queen on the seas; I am obeyed here as perhaps a queen may
be obeyed.--Ah!" she cried, interrupting herself, "_happy_ did I say?
Happiness is no word to express such bliss as mine. All the happiness
that should have fallen to all the women in the world has been my share.
Knowing one's own great love and self-devotion, to find in _his_
heart an infinite love in which a woman's soul is lost, and lost for
ever--tell me, is this happiness? I have lived through a thousand lives
even now. Here, I am alone; here, I command. No other woman has set foot
on this noble vessel, and Victor is never more than a few paces distant
from me,--he cannot wander further from me than from stern to prow," she
added, with a shade of mischief in her manner. "Seven years! A love
that outlasts seven years of continual joy, that endures all the tests
brought by all the moments that make up seven years--is this love? Oh,
no, no! it is something better than all that I know of life... human
language fails to express the bliss of heaven."

A sudden torrent of tears fell from her burning eyes. The four little
ones raised a piteous cry at this, and flocked like chickens about their
mother. The oldest boy struck the General with a threatening look.

"Abel, darling," said Helene, "I am crying for joy."

Helene took him on her knee, and the child fondled her, putting his arms
about her queenly neck, as a lion's whelp might play with the lioness.

"Do you never weary of your life?" asked the General, bewildered by his
daughter's enthusiastic language.

"Yes," she said, "sometimes, when we are on land, yet even then I have
never parted from my husband."

"But you need to be fond of music and balls and fetes."

"His voice is music for me; and for fetes, I devise new toilettes for
him to see. When he likes my dress, it is as if all the world admired
me. Simply for that reason I keep the diamonds and jewels, the precious
things, the flowers and masterpieces of art that he heaps upon me,
saying, 'H