it is not everything. The
human soul is unconquerable, even by love. But, nevertheless, be
warned. Do not drive it late. Ah! Why should I not confess to you, now
that all is over? Carl, you are aware that I have loved deeply. Can
you guess what being in love meant to me? Probably not. I am aging
now, but in my youth I was handsome, and I have had my voice. Women,
the richest, the cleverest, the kindest--they fling themselves at
such as me. There is no vanity in saying so; it is the simple fact. I
might have married a hundred times; I might have been loved a thousand
times. But I remained--as I was. My heart slept like that of a young
girl. I rejected alike the open advances of the bold and the shy,
imperceptible signals of the timid. Women were not for me. In secret I
despised them. I really believe I did.

"Then--and it is not yet two years ago--I met her whom you know. And
I--I the scorner, fell in love. All my pride, my self-assurance
crumbled into ruin about me, and left me naked to the torment of an
unrequited passion. I could not credit the depth of my misfortune, and
at first it was impossible for me to believe that she was serious in
refusing me. But she had the right. She was an angel, and I only a
man. She was the most beautiful woman in the world."

"She was--she is," I said.

He laughed easily.

"She is," he repeated. "But she is nothing to me. I admire her beauty
and her goodness, that is all. She refused me. Good! At first I
rebelled against my fate, then I accepted it." And he repeated: "Then
I accepted it."

I might have made some reply to his flattering confidences, but I
heard some one walk quickly across the foot-path outside and through
the wide entrance porch. In another moment the door of the salon was
thrown open, and a figure stood radiant and smiling in the doorway.
The antechamber had already been lighted, and the figure was
silhouetted against the yellow radiance.

"So you are here, and I have found you, all in the dark!"

Alresca turned his head.

"Rosa!" he cried in bewilderment, put out his arms, and then drew them
sharply back again.

It was Rosetta. She ran towards us, and shook hands with kind
expressions of greeting, and our eyes followed her as she moved about,
striking matches and applying them to candles. Then she took off her
hat and veil.

"There! I seemed to know the house," she said. "Immediately I had
entered the courtyard I felt that there was a corridor running t