, "you are a fool. Get up from your knees. I don't
want any of this stage-acting here."

He rose himself, and began to wander about the room, muttering and
grumbling.

As he pushed her rudely from him, the girl rose and, retreating some
steps from the table, gazed at him with a dazed, wondering look, as of
one before whose eyes some strange unaccountable thing was happening.

She was standing, in her brilliant beauty and in her delicate and
fantastic dress, her hands clasped before her. The jewels on her fingers
and on her breast paled before the solemn glow of her wonderful eyes,
which were dry, only from the intensity of her thought.

"No," she said at last, as it would seem in answer to some unspoken
question. "No. There is nothing strange in this. A woman's heart is
easily won. I am not the first, by many, who has found that out, too
late."

It might have seemed impossible to one easily stirred, easily wrought
upon by a woman's beauty--it would surely have seemed impossible to such
a one that any could gaze on a sight like this and harbour a selfish
thought; but the old man was perfectly unmoved.

"It is always the way," he said peevishly, "always the way with women;
now we shall have a scene--tears--entreaties. I shall be called all
manner of hard names for giving sensible advice."

And he turned his back upon the girl, and stood sullenly, gazing
apparently upon one of the painted panels of the wall.

For about a minute there was a terrible pause, then the curtains that
veiled the _salon_ were drawn forcibly back, and the groom of the
chambers, who was a Frenchman, announced suddenly--

"_Monseigneur le Prince._"

VIII.

THE Prince came forward smiling. The Maestro made a gesture of
inexpressible relief. He shuffled off toward the still opened curtain,
and, turning as he reached it, he bowed to the ground before his patron
and his pupil, and disappeared through the opening as the servant let
the curtain drop. We shall not care, I think, to see him again.

Faustina looked still more scared and bewildered than before at this
sudden change of actors and of parts. She would gladly have left the
room but she was incapable of anything of the kind--besides, where
should she go? The scene seemed to swim before her eyes, and the lights
to flicker. She sank down on her chair again.

The Prince had never looked so well. He was flushed with excitement, and
the habitual _insouciance_ of his manner had gi