s. God knows I loved her in all purity! Only
with false love we love the false. Beneath the unclean clinging garments
she sleeps fair.

My tale finished, "Now I will tell you mine," she said. "I am going to
be married soon. I shall be a Countess, Paul, the Countess Huescar--I
will teach you how to pronounce it--and I shall have a real castle in
Spain. You need not look so frightened, Paul; we shall not live there.
It is a half-ruined, gloomy place, among the mountains, and he loves it
even less than I do. Paris and London will be my courts, so you will
see me often. You shall know the great world, Paul, the world I mean to
conquer, where I mean to rule."

"Is he very rich?" I asked.

"As poor," she laughed, "as poor as a Spanish nobleman. The money I
shall have to provide, or, rather, poor dear Dad will. He gives me
title, position. Of course I do not love him, handsome though he is.
Don't look so solemn, Paul. We shall get on together well enough.
Queens, Paul, do not make love matches, they contract alliances. I have
done well, Paul; congratulate me. Do you hear, Paul? Say that I have
acted rightly."

"Does he love you?" I asked.

"He tells me so," she answered, with a laugh. "How uncourtier-like you
are, Paul! Do you suggest that any man could see me and not love me?"

She sprang to her feet. "I do not want his love," she cried; "it would
bore me. Women hate love they cannot return. I don't mean love like
yours, devout little Paul," she added, with a laugh. "That is sweet
incense wafted round us that we like to scent with our noses in the air.
Give me that, Paul; I want it, I ask for it. But the love of a hand, the
love of a husband that one does not care for--it would be horrible!"

I felt myself growing older. For the moment my goddess became a child
needing help.

"But have you thought--" I commenced.

"Yes, yes," she interrupted me quickly, "I have thought and thought till
I can think no more. There must be some sacrifice; it must be as little
as need be, that is all. He does not love me; he is marrying me for my
money--I know that, and I am glad of it. You do not know me, Paul. I
must have rank, position. What am I? The daughter of rich old Hasluck,
who began life as a butcher in the Mile End Road. As the Princess
Huescar, society will forget, as Mrs."--it seemed to me she checked
herself abruptly--"Jones or Brown it would remember, however rich
I might be. I am vain, Paul, caring for power--ambition.