rincess Alexis--there is nothing to be ashamed of in the title. I
presume you have a right to it?"

Etta looked up from her occupation of fixing a bracelet, with a little
glance of enquiry toward her husband.

They had been married a month. The honeymoon--a short one--had been
passed in the house of a friend, indeed a relation of Etta's own, a
Scotch peer who was not above lending a shooting-lodge in Scotland on
the tacit understanding that there should be some quid pro quo in the
future.

In answer Paul merely smiled, affectionately tolerant of her bright
sharpness of manner. Your bright woman in society is apt to be keen at
home. What is called vivacity abroad may easily degenerate into
snappiness by the hearth.

"I think it is rather ridiculous being called plain Mrs. Howard-Alexis,"
added Etta, with a pout.

They were going to a ball--the first since their marriage. They had just
dined, and Paul had followed his wife into the drawing-room. He took a
simple-minded delight in her beauty, which was of the description that
is at its best in a gorgeous setting. He stood looking at her, noting
her grace, her pretty, studied movements. There were, he reflected, few
women more beautiful--none, in his own estimation, fit to compare with
her.

She had hitherto been sweetness itself to him, enlivening his lonely
existence, shining suddenly upon his self-contained nature with a
brilliancy that made him feel dull and tongue-tied.

Already, however, he was beginning to discover certain small
differences, not so much of opinion as of thought, between Etta and
himself. She attached an importance to social function, to social
opinion, to social duties, which he in no wise understood. Invitations
were showered upon them. A man who is a prince and prefers to drop the
title need not seek popularity in London. The very respectable reader
probably knows as well as his humble servant, the writer, that in London
there is always a social circle just a little lower than one's own which
opens its doors with noble, disinterested hospitality, and is prepared
to lick the blacking from any famous foot.

These invitations Etta accepted eagerly. Some women hold it little short
of a crime to refuse an invitation, and go through life regretting that
there is only one evening to each day. To Paul these calls were nothing
new. His secretary had hitherto drawn a handsome salary for doing little
more than refuse such.

It was in Etta's nature