ebody more powerful forbids me."

"Who is more powerful--except Caesar himself?"

I made no answer, but I rose and, crossing the rug, stood by her. I
remember the look and the feel of the room very well; she lay back in a
low chair upholstered in blue; the firelight, forbidden her face, played
on the hand that held the screen, flushing its white to red. I could see
her hair gleaming in the fantastically varying light that the flames
gave as they left and fell. I was in a tumult of excitement and
timidity.

"More powerful than Caesar?" I asked, and my voice shook.

"Don't call yourself Caesar."

"Why not?"

There was a momentary hesitation before the answer came low:

"Because you mustn't laugh at yourself. I may laugh at you, but you
mustn't yourself."

I wondered at the words, the tone, the strange diffidence that infected
even a speech so full of her gay bravery. A moment later she added a
reason for her command.

"You're so absurd that you mustn't laugh at yourself. And, Caesar, if
you stay any longer, or--come again soon--other people will laugh at
you."

To this day I do not know whether she meant to give a genuine warning,
or to strike a chord that should sound back defiance.

"If ten thousand of them laugh, what is it to me? They dare laugh only
behind my back," I said.

She laughed before my face; the screen fell, and she laughed, saying
softly, "Caesar, Caesar!"

I was wonderfully happy in my perturbation. The great charm she had for
me was to-day alloyed less than ever before by the sense of rawness
which she, above all others, could compel me to feel. To-day she herself
was not wholly calm, not mistress of herself without a struggle, without
her moments of faintness. Yet now she appeared composed again, and there
was nothing but merriment in her eyes. She seemed to have forgotten that
I was supposed to be gone. I daresay that not to her, any more than to
myself, could I seem quite like an ordinary boy; perhaps the more I
forgot what was peculiar about me the more she remembered it, my
oblivion serving to point her triumph.

"And the Princess?" she asked, laughing still, but now again a little
nervously.

My exultation, finding vent in mischief and impelled by curiosity, drove
me to a venture.

"I shall tell the Princess that I kissed you," said I.

The Countess suddenly sat upright.

"And that you kissed me--several times," I continued.

"How dare you?" she cried in a whisper; and he