nd
conscientiously repudiated the idea of buying fish at Billingsgate at
five o'clock in the morning--"as far as the maintenance of his
principles is concerned."

"Soit," said the Princess, "we leave out the question of fortune. You
are then a man of humble birth, and the rank you have gained for
yourself."

"I am a man of no name and of tarnished reputation. Good God!" he
blazed out suddenly, losing control. "What is the good of torturing
ourselves like this? If I wouldn't marry you--before--until I had done
something in the front of the world to make you proud of me, what do
you think I'll do now, lying in the gutter for every one to kick me?
Would it be to the happiness of either of us for me to sneak through
society behind your rank? It would be the death of me and you would
come to hate me as a mean hound."

"You? A mean hound?" Her voice broke and the tears welled up in her
eyes. "You have done nothing for me to be proud of? You? You who did
what you did last night? Yes, I was there. I saw and heard. Listen!"
She rose to her feet and stood opposite to him, her eyes all stars, her
figure trembling and her hands moving in her Frenchwoman's passionate
gestures. "When I saw in the newspapers about your father, my heart was
wrung for you. I knew what it meant. I knew how you must suffer. I came
up straight to town. I wanted to be near you. I did not know how. I did
not want you to see me. I called in my steward. 'How can I see the
election?' We talked a little. He went and hired a room opposite the
Town Hall. I waited there in the darkness. I thought it would last
forever. And then came the result and the crowd cheered and I thought I
should choke. I sobbed, I sobbed, I sobbed--and then you came. And I
heard, and then I held out my arms to you alone in the dark room--like
this--and cried: 'Paul, Paul!"' Woman conquered. Madness surged through
him and he flung his arms about her and they kissed long and
passionately.

"Whether you do me the honour of marrying me or not," she said a while
later' flushed and triumphant, "our lives are joined together."

And Paul, still shaken by the intoxication of her lips and hair and
clinging pressure of her body, looked at her intensely with the eyes of
a man's longing. But he said: "Nothing can alter what I said a few
minutes ago--not all the passion and love in the world. You and I are
not of the stuff, thank God, to cut ourselves adrift and bury ourselves
in some romantic is