ger here and there--'To-day I
will do this, to-morrow I will feel that'--and the next morning comes
and the chart is in the fire. I wish I understood myself a little
better, Eugene!"

"Self-understanding is the rarest of all gifts," the prince remarked.
"It is left for those who love us to understand us."

"And you?"

"I believe that I understand you better, far better, than you understand
yourself," he declared. "That is why I also believe that I am necessary
to you. I can prevent your making mistakes."

"Then prevent me," she begged. "Something has happened, and the chart is
in the fire to-day."

"You have only," he said, "to give your maid her orders, to give me this
little hand, and I will draw out a fresh one which shall direct to the
place in life which is best for you. It is not too late."

She rose from beside him and walked toward the fireplace, as if to touch
the bell. He watched her with steady eyes but expressionless face. There
was something curious about her walk. The spring had gone from her feet,
her shoulders were a little hunched. It was the walk of a woman who
goes toward the things she fears.

"Stop!" he bade her.

She turned and faced him, quickly, almost eagerly. There was a look in
her face of the prisoner who finds respite.

"Leave the bell alone," he directed. "My own plans are changed. I do not
wish to leave London this week."

Her face was suddenly brilliant, her eyes shone. Something electric
seemed to quiver through her frame. She almost danced back to her place
by his side.

"How foolish!" she murmured. "Why didn't you say so at once?"

"Because," he replied, "they have only been changed during the last few
seconds. I wanted to discover something which I have discovered."

"To discover something?"

"That my time has not yet come."

She turned away from him. She was oppressed with a sense almost of fear,
a feeling that he was able to read the very thoughts forming in her
brain; to understand, as no one else in the world could understand, the
things that lived in her heart.

"I must not keep you," he remarked, glancing at the clock. "It was very
late for me to call, and you will be wanting to join your friends."

"They are coming here for me," she explained. "There is really no hurry
at all. We are not changing anything. It is to be quite a simple
evening. Sometimes I wish that you cared about things of that sort,
Eugene."

He blew through his lips a little cloud of sm