more piercing note, vanity bounded on
the stage of consciousness. She a dupe! she helpless! she to have
betrayed herself in seeking to betray her husband! she to have lived
these years upon flattery, grossly swallowing the bolus, like a clown
with sharpers! she--Seraphina! Her swift mind drank the consequences;
she foresaw the coming fall, her public shame; she saw the odium,
disgrace, and folly of her story flaunt through Europe. She recalled the
scandal she had so royally braved; and alas! she had now no courage to
confront it with. To be thought the mistress of that man: perhaps for
that. . . . She closed her eyes on agonising vistas. Swift as thought
she had snatched a bright dagger from the weapons that shone along the
wall. Ay, she would escape. From that world-wide theatre of nodding
heads and buzzing whisperers, in which she now beheld herself unpitiably
martyred, one door stood open. At any cost, through any stress of
suffering, that greasy laughter should be stifled. She closed her eyes,
breathed a wordless prayer, and pressed the weapon to her bosom.

At the astonishing sharpness of the prick, she gave a cry and awoke to a
sense of undeserved escape. A little ruby spot of blood was the reward
of that great act of desperation; but the pain had braced her like a
tonic, and her whole design of suicide had passed away.

At the same instant regular feet drew near along the gallery, and she
knew the tread of the big Baron, so often gladly welcome, and even now
rallying her spirits like a call to battle. She concealed the dagger in
the folds of her skirt; and drawing her stature up, she stood
firm-footed, radiant with anger, waiting for the foe.

The Baron was announced, and entered. To him, Seraphina was a hated
task: like the schoolboy with his Virgil, he had neither will nor leisure
to remark her beauties; but when he now beheld her standing illuminated
by her passion, new feelings flashed upon him, a frank admiration, a
brief sparkle of desire. He noted both with joy; they were means. 'If I
have to play the lover,' thought he, for that was his constant
preoccupation, 'I believe I can put soul into it.' Meanwhile, with his
usual ponderous grace, he bent before the lady.

'I propose,' she said in a strange voice, not known to her till then,
'that we release the Prince and do not prosecute the war.'

'Ah, madam,' he replied, ''tis as I knew it would be! Your heart, I
knew, would wound you when