ntry to which you
came, a visitor and a child. In that relation also there were duties,
and these duties I have not performed."

To claim the advantage of superior age is to give sure offence. "Duty!"
laughed Seraphina, "and on your lips, Frederic! You make me laugh. What
fancy is this? Go, flirt with the maids and be a prince in Dresden
china, as you look. Enjoy yourself, _mon enfant_, and leave duty and the
state to us."

The plural grated on the Prince. "I have enjoyed myself too much," he
said, "since enjoyment is the word. And yet there were much to say upon
the other side. You must suppose me desperately fond of hunting. But
indeed there were days when I found a great deal of interest in what it
was courtesy to call my government. And I have always had some claim to
taste; I could tell live happiness from dull routine; and between
hunting, and the throne of Austria, and your society, my choice had
never wavered, had the choice been mine. You were a girl, a bud, when
you were given me----"

"Heavens!" she cried, "is this to be a love-scene?"

"I am never ridiculous," he said; "it is my only merit; and you may be
certain this shall be a scene of marriage _a la mode_. But when I
remember the beginning, it is bare courtesy to speak in sorrow. Be just,
madam: you would think me strangely uncivil to recall these days without
the decency of a regret. Be yet a little juster, and own, if only in
complaisance, that you yourself regret that past."

"I have nothing to regret," said the Princess. "You surprise me. I
thought you were so happy."

"Happy and happy, there are so many hundred ways," said Otto. "A man may
be happy in revolt; he may be happy in sleep; wine, change, and travel
make him happy; virtue, they say, will do the like--I have not tried;
and they say also that in old, quiet, and habitual marriages there is
yet another happiness. Happy, yes; I am happy if you like; but I will
tell you frankly, I was happier when I brought you home."

"Well," said the Princess, not without constraint, "it seems you changed
your mind."

"Not I," returned Otto, "I never changed. Do you remember, Seraphina, on
our way home, when you saw the roses in the lane, and I got out and
plucked them? It was a narrow lane between great trees; the sunset at
the end was all gold, and the rooks were flying overhead. There were
nine, nine red roses; you gave me a kiss for each, and I told myself
that every rose and every kiss should sta