ou, countess."

"Good night, Colonel," sang out Maurice over his shoulder, and together
the pair climbed the stairs.

Fitzgerald was at a loss how to begin, for something told him that
Maurice would demand an explanation, though the affair was none of
his concern. He filled his pipe, fired it and tramped about the room.
Sometimes he picked up the end of a window curtain and felt of it;
sometimes he posed before one of the landscape oils.

"You have something on your mind," said Maurice, pulling off his hussar
jacket and kicking it across the room.

"Madame has promised to be my wife."

"And the conditions?" curtly.

Fitzgerald pondered over the other's lack of surprise. "What would you
do if you loved a woman and she promised to be your wife?"

"I'd marry her," sitting down at the table.

"What would you do in my place, and Madame had promised to marry you?"
puffing quickly.

"I'd marry her," answered Maurice, banging his fist on the table, "even
if all the kings and queens of Europe rose up against me. I would marry
her, if I had to bind her hands and feet and carry her to the altar and
force the priest at the point of a pistol, which, in all probability, is
what you will have to do."

"I love her," sullenly.

"Do you know who she is?"

"No."

"Would it make any difference?"

"No. Who is she?"

"She is a woman without conscience; she is a woman who, to gain her
miserable ends, will stop neither at falsehood, deceit nor bloodshed. Do
you want me to tell you more? She is--"

"Maurice, tell me nothing which will cause me to regret your friendship.
I love her; she has promised to be my wife."

"She will ruin you."

"She has already done that," laconically.

"Do you mean to tell me--"

"Yes! For the promise of her love I am dishonored. For the privilege
of kissing her lips I have sold my honor. To call her mine, I would go
through hell. God! do you know what it is to be lonely, to starve in
God-forsaken lands, to dream of women, to long for them?"

"And the poor paralytic king?"

"What is he to me?"

"And your father?"

"What are my dead father's wishes? Maurice, I am mad!"

"You are a very sick man," Maurice replied crossly. "What's to become of
all these vows--"

"You are wasting your breath! Do you remember what Rochefoucauld said
of Madame de Longueville?--`To win her heart, to delight her beautiful
eyes, I have taken up arms against the king; I would have done the same
against the g