xcept that which you might have felt in my kiss."

"Please, please don't," she said once more, her lip trembling, her eyes
full of the softness that the woman who loves cannot hide. "You shall
not go on! It is wrong!"

"It is not wrong," he cried passionately. "My love is not wrong. I want
you to understand and to believe. I can't hope that you will be my
wife--it's too wildly improbable. You are not for such as I. You are
pledged to a man of your own world--your own exalted world. But listen,
Genevra--see, my eyes call you darling even though my lips dare not---
Genevra, I'd give my soul to hear you say that you will be my wife. You
_do_ understand how it is with me?"

The delicious sense of possession thrilled her; she glowed with the
return of her self-esteem, in the restoration of that quality which
proclaimed her a princess of the blood. She was sure of him now! She was
sure of herself. She had her emotions well in hand. And so, despite the
delicious warmth that swept through her being, she chose to reveal no
sign of it to him.

"I do understand," she said quietly, meeting his gaze with a directness
that hurt him sorely. "And you, too, understand. I could not be your
wife. I am glad yet sorry that you love me, and I am proud to have heard
you say that you want me. But I am a sensible creature, Mr. Chase, and,
being sensible, am therefore selfish. I have seen women of my unhappy
station venture out side of their narrow confines in the search for
life-long joy with men who might have been kings had they no been born
under happier stars--men of the great wide world instead of the
soulless, heartless patch which such as I call a realm. Not one in a
hundred of those women found the happiness they were so sure of grasping
just outside their prison walls. It was not in the blood. We are the
embodiment of convention, the product of tradition. Time has proved in
nearly every instance that we cannot step from the path our prejudices
know. We must marry and live and die in the sphere to which we were
born. It must sound very bald to you, but the fact remains, just the
same. We must go through life unloved and uncherished, bringing princes
into the world, seeing happiness and love just beyond our reach all the
time. We have hearts and we have blood in our veins, as you say, and we
may love, too, but believe me, dear friend, we are bound by chains no
force can break--the chains of prejudice."

She had withdrawn her hands f