er promise?" adroitly evading the
question.

"What shall I do?" He emptied the ashes from his pipe, and rose; all
that was aggressive came into his face. "I will bind her hands and feet
and carry her to the altar, and shoot the priest that refuses to marry
us. O Maurice, rest easy; no woman lives who will make a fool of me, and
laugh."

"That's comfort;" and Maurice turned in.

This night it was the Englishman who sat up till the morning hours.
Sylvia Amerbach.... A fear possessed him. If it should be, he thought;
if it should be, what then?

Midnight in Madame's boudoir; no light save that which streamed rosily
from the coals in the grate. The countess sat with her slippered feet
upon the fender. She held in her hand a screen, and if any thoughts
marked her face, they remained in blurred obscurity.

"Heu!" said Madame from the opposite side; "it is all over. It was
detestable. I, to suffer this humiliation! Do you know what I have done?
I have promised to be his wife! His wife, I! Is it not droll?" There was
a surprising absence of mirth in the low laugh which followed.

"I trust Madame will find it droll."

"And you?"

"And I, Madame?"

"Yes; did you not bring the clown to your feet?"

"No, Madame."

"How? You did not have the joy denied me--of laughing in his face?"

"No, Madame." With each answer the voice grew lower.

"Since when have I been Madame to you?"

"Since to-day."

Madame reached out a band and pressed down the screen. "Elsa, what is
it?"

"What is what, Madame?"

"This strange mood of yours."

Silence.

"You were gay enough this morning. Tell me."

"There is nothing to tell, Madame, save that my sacrifices are at an
end. I have nothing left."

"What! You forsake me when the end is won?" in astonishment.

"I did not say that I should desert you; I said that I had no more
sacrifices to make." The Countess rose. "For your sake, Madame, because
you have always been kind to me, and because it is impossible not to
love you, I have degraded myself. I have pretended to love a man who saw
through the artifice and told me so, to save me further shame. O Madame,
it is all execrable!

"And you will use this love which you have gained--this first love of
a man who has known no other and will know no other while he lives!--to
bring about his ruin? This other, at whose head you threw me--beware of
him. He is light-hearted and gay, perhaps. You call him a clown; he
is cunning and bra