mber which hand it was."

"You are very modest. I should have made much of it."

He could not translate this; so he said: "There was nothing injured but
my hat. I seem unfortunate in that direction."

She smiled, recalling the incident in the archbishop's garden.

"I shall keep the hat, however," he said, "as a souvenir."

"Souvenirs, Monsieur," she replied carelessly, "and old age are
synonymous. You and I ought not to have any souvenirs. Have you seen
the picture gallery? No? Then I shall have the pleasure of showing it
to you. Monseigneur is very proud of his gallery. He has a Leonardo, a
Botticelli, a Murillo, and a Rembrandt. And they really show better in
artificial light, which softens the effect of time."

Half an hour was passed in the gallery. It was very pleasant to
listen to her voice as she described this and that painting, and the
archbishop's adventures in securing them. It did not seem possible to
him that she was a princess, perhaps destined to become a queen, so free
was she from the attributes of royalty, so natural and ingenuous. He
caught each movement of her delicate head, each gesture of her hand, the
countless inflections of her voice, the lights which burned or died away
in the dark wine of her eyes.

Poor devil! he mused, himself in mind; poor fool! He forgot the world,
he forgot that he was a prisoner on parole, he forgot the strife between
the kingdom and the duchy, he forgot everything but the wild impossible
love which filled his senses. He forgot even Prince Frederick of
Carnavia.

In truth, the world was "a sorry scheme of things." It was grotesque
with inequalities. He had no right to love her; it was wrong to give
in to the impulses of the heart, the natural, human impulses. A man can
beat down the stone walls of a fort, scale the impregnable heights of
a citadel, master the earth and the seas, but he can not surmount
the invisible barriers which he himself erected in the past ages--the
quality of birth. Ah! if only she had been a peasant, unlettered and
unknown, and free to be won! The tasks of Hercules were then but play to
him!

Next she led him through the aisles of potted plants in the
conservatory. She was very learned. She explained the origin of each
flower, its native soil, the time and manner of its transportation.
Perhaps she was surprised at his lack of botanical knowledge, he asked
so many questions. But it was not the flowers, it was her voice, which
urged him t