imson. The
noises of the city--beat of hoofs upon wooden pavements, horn of train
or motor-car, jingle of bell upon cab-horse--came here faintly and as if
from a great distance. Above the dark trees of the Cours la Reine the
sky glowed, softly golden, reflecting the million lights of Paris.

Ste. Marie closed his eyes, and against darkness he saw the beautiful
head of Helen Benham, the clear-cut, exquisite modelling of feature and
contour, the perfection of form and color. Her eyes met his eyes, and
they were very serene and calm and confident. She smiled at him, and the
new contours into which her face fell with the smile were more perfect
than before. He watched the turn of her head, and the grace of the
movement was the uttermost effortless grace one dreams that a queen
should have. The heart of Ste. Marie quickened in him, and he would have
gone down upon his knees.

He was well aware that with the coming of this girl something
unprecedented, wholly new to his experience, had befallen him--an
awakening to a new life. He had been in love a very great many times. He
was usually in love. And each time his heart had gone through the same
sweet and bitter anguish, the same sleepless nights had come and gone
upon him, the eternal and ever new miracle had wakened spring in his
soul, had passed its summer solstice, had faded through autumnal regrets
to winter's death; but through it all something within him had waited
asleep.

He found himself wondering dully what it was--wherein lay the great
difference?--and he could not answer the question he asked. He knew only
that whereas before he had loved, he now went down upon prayerful knees
to worship. In a sudden poignant thrill the knightly fervor of his
forefathers came upon him, and he saw a sweet and golden lady set far
above him upon a throne. Her clear eyes gazed afar, serene and
untroubled. She sat wrapped in a sort of virginal austerity, unaware of
the base passions of men. The other women whom Ste. Marie had--as he was
pleased to term it--loved had certainly come at least half-way to meet
him, and some of them had come a good deal farther than that. He could
not, by the wildest flight of imagination, conceive this girl doing
anything of that sort. She was to be won by trial and high endeavor, by
prayer and self-purification--not captured by a warm eye-glance, a
whispered word, a laughing kiss. In fancy he looked from the crowding
cohorts of these others to that stil