sovereigns dethroned in the revolutions of the nineteenth century; late
in life, a widower, the ex-king had married a beautiful young girl of no
great family, who had died in giving birth to Guido. The marriage had of
course been morganatic, though perfectly legal, and Guido neither bore
the name of his father's royal race, nor could he ever lay claim to the
succession, in the utterly improbable event of a restoration. But he was
half brother to the childless man, nearly forty years older than
himself, whose faithful friends still called him "your Majesty" in
private; he was nephew to the extremely authentic Princess Anatolie, and
he was first cousin to at least one king who had held his own. In the
eyes of an heiress in search of social position as an equivalent for her
millions, all this would more than compensate for the fact that his
visiting card bore the somewhat romantic and unlikely name, "Guido
d'Este," without any title or explanation whatever.

But apart from the sordid consideration of values to be given and
received, Guido was young, good-looking if not handsome, and rather
better gifted than most men; he had reached the age of twenty-seven
without having what society is pleased to call a past--in other words
without ever having been the chief actor in a social tragedy, comedy, or
farce; and finally, though he had once been fond of cards, he had now
entirely given up play. If he had been a little richer, he could almost
have passed for a model young man in the eyes of the exacting and
prudent parent of marriageable daughters. Judging from the Princess
Anatolie, it was probable that he resembled his mother's family more
than his father's.

For all these reasons his friend thought that, if he chose, he might
easily find an heiress who would marry him with enthusiasm; but, being
his friend, Lamberti was very glad that he rejected the idea.

The two were not men who ever talked together of their principles,
though they sometimes spoke of their beliefs and differed about them.
Belief is usually absolute, but principle is always a matter of
conscience, and the conscience is a part of the mixed self in which soul
and mind and matter are all involved together. Men born in the same
surroundings and brought up in the same way generally hold to the same
principles as guides in life, and show the same abhorrence for the sins
that are accounted dishonourable, and the same indulgence for those not
condemned by the code