ard a name announced, a name
that set her heart beating. At last! The poet had kept his word. She was
to meet in the flesh the man whose too few books were her bibles of art,
of philosophy, of all that stood for aspiration toward a lovely ideal in
a dull, matter-of-fact world.

"Now," said the princess, as if smiling at some hidden joke, "now you
will meet _my_ Superman." And she led the young American girl to Octave
Keroulan and his wife, and, after greeting them in her masculine manner,
she burst forth:--

"Dear poet! here is one of your adorers from overseas. Guard your
husband well, Madame Lys."

So he was married. Well, that was not such a shocking fact. Nor was
Madame Keroulan either--a very tall, slim, English-looking blonde, who
dressed modishly and evidently knew that she was the wife of a famous
man. Ermentrude found her insipid; she had studied her face first before
comparing the mental photograph of the poet with the original. Nor did
she feel, with unconscious sex rivalry, any sense of inferiority to the
wife of her admired one. He was nearly forty, but he looked older; gray
hairs tinged his finely modelled head. His face was shaven, and with the
bulging brow and full jaw he was more of the German or Belgian than
French. Black hair thrown off his broad forehead accented this
resemblance; a composer rather than a prose-poet and dramatist, was the
rapid verdict of Ermentrude. She was not disappointed, though she had
expected a more fragile type. The weaver of moonshine, of mystic
phrases, of sweet gestures and veiled sonorities should not have worn
the guise of one who ate three meals a day and slept soundly after his
mellow incantations. Yet she was not--inheriting, as she did, a modicum
of sense from her father--disappointed.

The conversation did not move more briskly with the entrance of the
Keroulans. The marquis sullenly gossiped with Mr. Sheldam; the princess
withdrew herself to the far end of the room with her two painters.
Rajewski was going to a _soiree_, he informed them, where he would play
before a new picture by Carriere, as it was slowly undraped; no one less
in rank than a duchess would be present! A little stiffly, Ermentrude
Adams assured the Keroulans of her pleasure in meeting them. The poet
took it as a matter of course, simply, without a suspicion of posed
grandeur. Ermentrude saw this with satisfaction. If he had clay
feet,--and he must have them; all men do,--at least he wore his g