eart as a friend?
Eugenia, the Greek, the child of a plain citizen, is far more to you
than the wives and daughters of our nobles. I will not say--far be it
from me--that the Vandal women are as corrupt and degenerate as, alas,
most of us men. Certainly not! But under this sky, in three
generations, they, too, have deteriorated. Gold, finery, luxury, and
again gold, fill their souls. They long for wealth, for boundless
pleasure, almost like the Romans. Their souls have grown feeble. No one
understands or shares Hilda's enthusiasm."

"Yes, they are vain and shallow," said the Princess, sadly.

"Is it any wonder, then, that we men do not seek to wed these
pretentious dolls? Because I am rich, fathers and, still more, eager,
anxious mothers, and even--well, I will not say it! In short, I might
have married many dozen Vandal girls, had I desired to do so. But I
said, no. I loved no one of them. I cared only for this child, this
little Greek. Her I love ardently, from the very depths of my soul, and
faithfully too. For my whole life!"

Hilda's glance darted over him from her high seat to the swaying
curtains.

"And now--now, I love even more than ever the pearl I have lost. She
honors the love she once felt for me by sparing the unworthy man. She
has not told you the wrong I did her, the crime I committed. But--" he
straightened himself to his full height, his manly, handsome
countenance illumined by the loftiest feeling--"I have imposed it upon
myself as a penance, if she said nothing, to confess it to you with my
own lips. Write and tell her so; perhaps then she will think of me more
kindly. It is the heaviest punishment to tell you; for, Princess Hilda,
I revere you as I would a goddess, aye, the protecting goddess of our
people. The thought that you will now despise me is like death. But you
shall know! I have--so I am told; I do not know, but it is doubtless
true--I have Eugenia--I did it while intoxicated, after drinking an
ocean of wine--but I did it! And I am not worthy ever to see her again.
I have--"

"Not you, my beloved, it was the wine," cried an exultant voice, and a
slender figure clung passionately yet shyly to his broad breast, and,
while ardently embracing him with her right arm, she laid the little
fingers of her left hand upon his mouth to stay his words.

"Eugenia!" exclaimed the giant, flushing crimson. "You heard me? You
can forgive? You still love me?"

"Unto death! Unto the grave! No, beyond