ant to our race. Bring the support of your name
and your valor to our cause. Enter the Diet of Hungary. Your place is
marked out for you there in the first rank, as it was in the old days
upon the battlefield."

Andras only smiled.

"If I were ambitious!" he said to Marsa. Then he added: "But I am
ambitious only for your happiness."

Marsa's happiness! It was deep, calm, and clear as a lake. It seemed to
the Tzigana that she was dreaming a dream, a beautiful dream, a dream
peaceful, sweet, and restful. She abandoned herself to her profound
happiness with the trustfulness of a child. She was all the more happy
because she had the exquisite sensation that her dream would have no
awakening. It would end in all the charm of its poetry.

She was sure that she could not survive the immense joy which destiny
had accorded her; and she did not rebel against this decree. It seemed
to her right and just. She had never desired any other ending to her
love than to die beloved, to die with Andras's kiss of forgiveness upon
her lips, with his arms about her, and to sink with a smile into the
eternal sleep. What more beautiful thing could she, the Tzigana, have
wished?

When the Prince's people saluted her by that title of "Princess" which
was hers, she trembled as if she had usurped it; she wished to be Marsa
to the Prince, Marsa, his devoted slave, who looked at him with her
great eyes full of gratitude and love. And she wished to be only that.
It seemed to her that, in the ancient home of the Zilahs, the birthplace
of soldiers, the eyrie of eagles, she was a sort of stranger; but, at
the same time, she thought, with a smile:

"What matters it? It is for so short a time."

One day Prince Zilah received from Vienna a large sealed envelope.
Minister Ladany earnestly entreated him to come to the Austrian capital
and present, in the salons of Vienna and at the imperial court, Princess
Zilah, of whose beauty the Austrian colony of Paris raved.

Marsa asked the Prince what the letter contained.

"Nothing. An invitation to leave our solitude. We are too happy here."

Marsa questioned him no further; but she resolved that she would never
allow the Prince to take her to that court which claimed his presence.
In her eyes, she was always the Tzigana; and, although Menko was dead,
she would never permit Zilah to present her to people who might have
known Count Michel.

No, no, let them remain in the dear old castle, he living only f