used. "I want you to be a great
man," she said, with a strange tenderness in her voice.

"With you by my side," said he, "I feel I could conquer the earth."

"As your good friend I shall always be by your side. Vous voyez, mon
cher Paul," she went on quickly in French. "I am not quite as people
see me. I am a woman who is lonely and not too happy, who has had
disillusions which have embittered her life. You know my history. It is
public property. But I am young. And my heart is healed--and it craves
faith and tenderness and--and friendship. I have many to flatter me. I
am not too ugly. Many men pay their court to me, but they do not touch
my heart. None of them even interest me. I don't know why. And then I
have my rank, which imposes on me its obligations. Sometimes I wish I
were a little woman of nothing at all, so that I could do as I like.
Mais enfin, I do what I can. You have come, Paul Savelli, with your
youth and your faith and your genius, and you pay your court to me like
the others. Yes, it is true--and as long as it was amusing, I let it go
on. But now that you interest me, it is different. I want your success.
I want it with all my heart. It is a little something in my life--I
confess it--quelque chose de tres joli--and I will not spoil it. So let
us be good friends, frank and loyal--without any Scudery." She looked
at him with eyes that had lost their languor--a sweet woman's eyes, a
little moist, very true. "And now," she said, "will you be so kind as
to put a log on the fire."

Paul rose and threw a log on the glowing embers, and stood by her side.
He was deeply moved. Never before had she so spoken. Never before had
she afforded a glimpse of the real woman. Her phrases, so natural, so
sincere, in her own tongue, and so caressive, stirred the best in him.
The glamour passed from the royal lady; only the sweet and beautiful
woman remained.

"I will be what you will, my Princess," he said.

At that moment he could not say more. For the first time in his life he
was mute in a woman's presence; and the reason was that for the first
time in his life love for a woman had gripped his heart.

She rose and smiled at him. "Bons amis, francs et loyaux?"

"Francs et loyaux."

She gave him her hand in friendship; but she gave him her eyes in love.
It is the foolish way of women.

"May a frank and loyal friend write to you sometimes?" he asked.

"Why, yes. And a frank and loyal friend will answer."

"And w