p MARGARET BLAKE III ! M j I i!!i 111 IN MEMQRlANi 1 Mary J, L. MoDonald '3.3 3 V. • • * • !••• WAS A FACE TO CHANGE THE MAP OF EMPIRES. Frontispiece Page 270 THE GREATER JOY A Romance BY MARGARET BLAKE ILLUSTRATIONS BY E. A. FURMAN G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK • • • * ' v COPYRIGHT, 19 1 2, BY G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY The Greater Joy IN MEMORIAM MARY J L MCDONALD CONTENTS THAPTER PAGE I 7 II 22 III 35 IV 67 V. 78 VI s in VII 119 VIII 134 IX 145 X. 149 XI 160 XII 170 XIII. 184 XIV 195 XV. 212 XVI. 236 XVII 251 XVIII 259 XIX 301 XX 311 XXI 343 XXII 385 XXIII 403 XXIV 412 XXV 431 XXVI 437 XXVII 452 XXVIII , 457 .)80i) 00 ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Hers was a face to change the map of empires Frontitpiea 270 " We will have the grounds to ourselves " • • • • 90 A strand of coral beads left her breathless with delight • • 1 79 She could remember no prayer adapted to her needs . • • 348 THE GREATER JOY CHAPTER I "Alice Vaughn/' said the head nurse sententkmsiv; "inasmuch as the incomparably senile old tossils who run this institution have prohibited our hazing proba- tionary nurses as formerly, we are reluctantly forced to resort to these means of testing your fitness to be in our midst. The Court of Inquiry, which you see here con- vened, has prepared a series of questions to be put to you, and which you must answer. Our reason for doing so is not a frivolous one. We want no mental or ethical tenderfeet in our midst. We are determined to weed out the unfit at the beginning of every term. Now, if you are the kind of girl who blushes every time men- tion is made of an obstetrical instrument, we'd rather get rid of you at the start." The person to whom these words were addressed started slightly and a faint flush overspread her face and neck. The nurse continued: "If you are squeamish, and prefer to avoid cross- examination, you are at liberty to walk out of this room unmolested. You will have no malice to fear from us in the future, nor yet any kindness to expect. You will be immune from both. "Alice Vaughn, do you prefer to leave us while there 7 8 THE GREATER JOY is yet time? Once the inquiry has begun, you must re- main until it is finished, and I warn you, you must keep your countenance, or we'll have you up for contempt of court. Alice Vaughn, the Court awaits your answer !" Lottie Hamblin, the nurse who delivered this absurd charge, was small, dark and wiry. About her, in a semicircle, seated on the floor for lack of sufficient chairs, were two and twenty young women in nurse's garb. All eyes were focussed upon the girl addressed. Alice Vaughn, probationary nurse at Hospital, Manhattan, was of an unusually fair type of blonde. It was to her remarkable pallid coloring that the impres- sion of transcendent loveliness, which she conveyed, was usually ascribed. The charm which she radiated was due fully as much to the gentle sweetness of her manner as to her beauty, and her features were as exquisite as her coloring. Her complexion was creamily white, like the petals of a jonquil or a water-lily; her lips were the pale pink of Japanese coral, showing her to be anaemic, and her halo of fair hair attracted attention by the ab- sence of the golden lustre, which usually is the chief glory of fair women. In spite of this singularity, per- haps because of it, her hair contained a strange allure. It drew the eyes again and again, like a magnet — mak- ing the beholder search his memory for something of similar hue with which to compare it. But the quest was usually fruitless. The right metaphor eluded those who sought it. She had regained her composure, and stood quietly behind the barrier formed by an old-fashioned sofa and a table, arranged to represent a prisoner's dock. There was nothing in her manner now of either embarrass- ment or self-consciousness. She did not reply at once, and Lottie Hamblin said tartly : THE GREATER JOY 9 "Why don't you reply, Miss Vaughn? Unless you do, we'll have you up for contempt of court." "If you please," spoke up the young girl dryly, "what is the penalty for contempt of court?" Lottie grinned. The newcomer had a sense of humor. It boded well. "We haven't quite decided," she replied. "But it will be nothing less than making you eat ten pounds of choco- late peppermints at a sitting." "Who pays for them, you or I ?" laughed Alice, quick as a flash. The two and twenty girls sitting in the semicircle smilingly evinced their appreciation. "Look here, Miss Vaughn," went on Lottie Hamblin severely, "you haven't told us yet whether you'll stay or go." "I certainly prefer jolly companionship to the cold shoulder," said Alice softly. "I appeal to the Court," cried Lottie. "Are we going to like the newcomer?" "Indeed we are!" shouted the two and twenty. "You hear, Miss Vaughn?" said Lottie, with feigned pompousness. "The Court is indulgent. Now, are you ready for the Ordeal by Fire?" "Fire ahead !" said Alice calmly. Silence fell about the listeners. They all knew the nature of the questions to be propounded to the slim, fair young girl, and some of them had the grace to feel a slight embarrassment. One girl giggled. Lottie coughed ominously. "Miss Vaughn, how old were you when you first knew what the conjugal relation actually is?" Alice had expected some absurd query, some wretched tomfoolery such as girls sometimes indulge in, and had 10 THE GREATER JOY braced herself to cope with fantastic but innocent non- sense. The brutal question, for which she was wholly unprepared, once more brought the color to her face as from the sting of a lash. Her mouth quivered, but her eyes were cold and angry. She answered defiantly, "Sixteen." "Spirit, my child, is excellent; temper reprehensible," Lottie reproved her in a maternal tone. "What did you think of the revelation?" "I thought it vile, abominable, detestable, and think so still whenever I happen to think of it, which isn't often." "And how old are you now ?" "Nineteen." "Well, well, you seem to be less variable in your opin- ions than most of your sex. But there is plenty of time ahead of you in which to mature. Who told you — ahem — acquainted you with the particulars?" "A friend," Alice answered shortly. Tears were rising in her throat and laughter was plucking at her lips — tears of mortification and embarrassment, and laughter that was akin to hysteria. "A friend, you say, told you. Yes, it is usually a friend. May I inquire, was the friend of masculine or feminine gender?" "A girl, of course." The young nurse's eyes were ablaze with indignation. "That is by no means a matter of course, Miss Vaughn," said Lottie indulgently. "Young men, as well as young women, have been known to possess the knowl- edge requisite for imparting such information." Alice could not repress the smile which the inquisitor's facility at repartee brought to her lips. "Why are you laughing?" Lottie demanded, feign- ing anger. "You are expected, Miss Vaughn, to preserve THE GREATER JOY 11 perfect gravity of demeanor. Your mirth is unseemly." "Even when it is a tribute to your wit?" demanded Alice. Pretending not to hear, Lottie turned to the others : "Do you think we are going to like this young woman, gentlemen of the jury — I meant to say, ladies of the court ?" "We are going to love her!" shouted the two and twenty. Lottie resumed: "Have you ever been kissed, Miss Vaughn, or are you an unkissed daughter?" "Mother always kissed me good night," Alice re- sponded with the utmost gravity. "Oh dear, oh dear, such innocence! By a man, my child, by a man !" "Father also always kissed me good night." The two and twenty embraced each other with rap- turous mirth. "Hear, hear !" they shouted. "Hear, hear !" Lottie pounded the floor with the gavel. "Would you consider it preferable to be the wife of a man you didn't love or the mistress of a man you adored?" "I object," interrupted Alice. "I cannot answer that question intelligently, because I have been confronted with the first contingency only, and that, Heaven knows, was bad enough." "Do you mean us to infer from that that you have never been in love?" "Never!" "And you are nineteen ! Young ladies, did any of you attain the age of nineteen without being in love? AH those who did say 'aye.' " There were no "ayes," and the girls, contorting their 12 THE GREATER JOY faces to express incredulity and wonderment, looked at each other gravely, wagging their heads from side to side, with an inanity of expression that would have done credit to the chorus of a musical comedy. "Have any of you reached eighteen without being in love? None. Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen? One 'aye.' Only one 'aye' at fifteen. Miss Vaughn, here are twenty- two normal, healthy, young women, and out of the twen- ty-two only one reached fifteen years of age without hav- ing been in love. And you at nineteen claim to be ignor- ant of the sensation. Are you quite sure you are speak- ing the truth and nothing but the truth ?" "Quite sure." "Well, then, you have my sympathy for your back- wardness. You'd better hurry and make up for lost time. It's very sweet to be in love." "Is it?" queried Alice ironically. "Hush; you are here to answer questions, not to ask them. Has any man ever made love to you?" "I am afraid I shall have to ask for a definition of the phrase, 'making love/ before I can reply intelligently." The two and twenty fairly exploded with enjoy- ment. "Miss Vaughn," said Lottie severely, "such frivolity 15 lamentable. If you were an ugly young v\oman, your retort would have moved the Court and myself to pity ? to compassion, for we are by no means without heart. We would even have been tempted to dress up one of our number as a man with instructions to 'make love' to you, in order to afford you the experience which you pretend you lack. But you are a phenomenally lovely young woman, and it is quite unthinkable that you have not already tempted more than one masculine creature to make eyes at you. We will, therefore, dispense with a THE GREATER JOY 13 truthful reply to my last query, and proceed to the next. Has any man ever proposed. to you?" "Yes." "What did you do?" "I accepted him." A shout of laughter rang through the room. In vain Lottie pounded the floor with the gavel. The girls were uproarious. Lottie finally succeeded in making herself heard. "You are trifling with the Court !" she shouted. "Re- member the ten pounds of chocolate to be eaten at one sitting ! You'll be sick for a week ! You'll never be able to tolerate the sight of sweets again ! What do you mean by saying you engaged yourself to be married after pre- tending such highfaluting disgust with matrimony?" "Oh, dear," said Alice petulantly, "I assure you I am speaking the truth. When I engaged myself I didn't know what marriage meant. As soon as I knew I broke the engagement." She laughed nervously, and two red spots appeared on either cheek. "Heavens and earth !" exclaimed Lottie. "Devilish in- teresting this is. But perceive, if you please, Miss Vaughn, that the Court is not devoid of delicacy. We are extremely interested in your remarkable confession, but we refrain from further inquiries, realizing that your personal affairs are none of our business. One more question, Miss Vaughn, and then this trial, in which you have borne yourself with praiseworthy fortitude, will be over. Do you really think you will never change — do you really never intend to marry ?" The two little red spots on either cheek deepened, and Alice's fingers locked and interlocked nervously. "I shall never marry," she said weakly. 14 THE GREATER JOY "You are not observing precision in replying. Preci- sion is a very important quality in women of our profes- sion. Do you really never intend to marry ?" Alice's embarrassment became painfully apparent. This was sudden and unexpected, for she had taken the verbal hazing good-naturedly, and the girls looked at each other in astonishment. "I do not intend to marry," she said half-defiantly. "I shall never marry a man I do not love. And — I do not want to fall in love." To the consternation of the other young women, she burst into tears. She could not tell them — how could she? — that for over a year a frightful feeling of fear had been growing in her, fear of meeting a man with whom she would fall in love. Instinctively she felt that love would mean more to her than to the average woman, that if any obstacle were to interpose between the man and herself, she would go mad. And yet she had spoken the truth during the catechism. . This frame of mind is not unusual with young girls. Modesty, decorum, decency, the sense of propriety of a well-bred girl tend to make the marriage relation appear as an indescribably revolting tie ; but the deeper instincts of sex, of the flesh — sometimes purely of maternity — en- tice the pure-minded young girl into new channels, and she soon finds that the gulf between herself and the rest of womankind, between herself, her mother and her grandmother, is not as impassable as she would like to believe. On seeing Alice's tears, Lottie and the other nurses were filled with compunction. The newcomer had borne herself so well through the ordeal, and had taken every- thing in such good part, hat they felt sorry for her. THE GREATER JOY 15 They filed out of the room, and when they had gone, the head nurse very kindly apologized for having carried the joke so far. Later the girls came back, marching two by two, and carrying ice cream, bonbons, cakes, and some delicious fancy sandwiches. Alice joined heartily in the merriment that followed, and to her surprise enjoyed the evening immensely, for the girls were lively and witty, and better bred than Alice had believed possible while her castigation was going on. Moreover, it was a great novelty and a great treat for her to find herself among a lot of bright, mischievous girls of her own age. She did not even regret the humili- ating culmination of the hazing, since it seemed to have created a feeling of general good-fellowship. But when at last she was alone in her own dormitory, a myriad of recollections came flooding back to worry her and keep her awake. She remembered poignantly the afternoon when her bosom chum, Sally Hoskins, had acquainted her with the mystery of life. She was only sixteen, and one of the boys, five years older than she, who had gone all through school with her, had asked her to marry him. Appar- ently every one knew that he was going to ask her to be his wife, for her aunt, who had adopted her after her parents' death, had instructed her that when Ned asked her to marry him, it would be her duty to accept him, because it was part of the plan of Nature to have girls marry, and Ned, having well-to-do people, would be able to give her a comfortable home. This, her aunt said, was providential, for she had very little money to leave Alice, as her widow's pension, on which she principally depended for ready cash, would, of course, cease with her demise. Alice had not questioned her aunt's argu- ments in the least. She was a* docile girl, and moreover, 16 THE GREATER JOY she lived so intensely in her own world of dreams and books that realities mattered very little. She was a great reader, and her uncle's library was filled with books of all sorts — books good, bad and indifferent, and, undetected by her aunt, who lived in gentlewomanly ignorance of the poison for young minds that lurked behind the covers of some of the volumes, she spent entire days devour- ing English translations of French masterpieces — books hardly fit reading for a girl of sixteen brought up in the secluded and compressed atmosphere of a New England household. Her imagination, of course, had taken fire, but with the god-like virginity of mind that is possible only in a state of perfect innocence, this girl of sixteen, knowing no evil, had seen none in the books which she read, had perceived only the delicacy of sentiment. To her a liaison was only a sweet-sounding foreign word for a friendship, dignified by secrecy, unsoiled by sordid and mercenary thoughts. These women, wives of rich, odious, neglect- ful husbands, who had barely a sou in their purses, who asked their "lovers" to play at rouge et noir for them, who won fabulous sums and divided them with their im- pecunious "lovers;" or who begged fortunes from aged relatives to pour them into the hands of their admirers, seemed to her not women of flesh and blood, not puppets who existed merely on paper, but creatures from fairy- land — goddesses. How wonderful was life, she mused! In those far- away days she had thought how happy she would be if some day, when Ned and she were married, she might drive through the streets of a great city, to seek in some odd way to make her fortune, with a handsome young man at her side, who adored her and had not a sou — or a penny — in his pocket, and who was her lover. THE GREATER JOY 17 But one thought troubled her in those early days, an inchoate thought — a thought that was still unborn but which kept trembling somewhere on the threshold of her consciousness, that pulsed near the base of her brain. What had her aunt meant when she said that it was part of Nature's plan that girls should marry? Was there more to marriage than she knew? What more could it be than living under the same roof with a man, in the same house, and sleeping with him in the same room? She had thought in those innocent days that it must be terribly embarrassing to sleep in the same room with a man, even though he were your husband. She was un- usually modest, even for a girl. She remembered how one time, when she had slept at Sally's house, and had shared Sally's room for the night, Sally had laughed at her for virtually dressing and undressing with her night- gown on, because the thought that Sally might see her bare limbs outraged her sense of decorum. Soon after that she had become engaged to Ned, and Ned had kissed her twice, once on either cheek. But he had often kissed before, when they were boy and girl in school ; he had frequently kissed her after carrying home her books for her from school. But a few evenings after that he had kissed her on the lips, and the sensation of his warm, moist mouth had been very disagreeable to her, had made her think of touching a snail or a cater- pillar. But she had not liked to tell him this; he had seemed so happy because she had allowed him to kiss her lips. One day her aunt had told her to avoid walking past a certain house as much as possible, and when Alice had asked the reason her aunt had said : "The woman who lives there is not a good woman ; she has an illicit love affair." And Alice had never forgotten the look on her 18 THE GREATER JOY ___ ____________ ___-__. ________ ________—__———-_ ___________ _______ __ aunt's face as she said this. It had been a look of loath- ing and disgust, and somehow it seemed to the girl that there was insinuated into it a bit of envy. After that she had something more to wonder about. What did that mean — "an illicit love affair ?" If only she had dared to ask Sally about this and also about marriage. But Sally was always calling her "silly," and she would cer- tainly think it ridiculous of her to imagine there might be something else to marriage than what every one knew, or that an "illicit love affair" meant anything else than merely being fond of a man who wasn't your husband. But why should there be such a fuss about it if a woman happened to be fond of some other man, since she was permitted to be fond of other women, and no one thought anything about it? Nevertheless, the idea that there was "something else" persisted, and the young girl witnessed strange, unholy phantoms winging their way across the background of her consciousness. Yet always and always she kept them from crossing the threshold. Then the unexpected happened. Sally had come to her one day, quite seriously, and without teasing or scof- fing, had told Alice that she considered it her duty as an older friend to ask her, since she was engaged to be married, whether she knew just what the marriage rela- tion was. The young girl's ears were very pink, as she answered : "I think — I suppose, I don't see what else it can be, but just sleeping together, or perhaps — don't think me hor- rid, will you, Sally? — having to undress in the same room. That seems dreadfully shocking to me." Sally looked volumes. "You poor, dear, innocent, white little lamb," she said, "you're engaged to be married, and it is just as I thought. THE GREATER JOY 19 You have no idea what you are letting yourself in for." "What — what is there, if not that?" she stammered. Sally sighed. How in heaven's name was she to com- municate the bald truth to this white-souled, little human blossom ? She had been told herself, but she strongly dis- approved of the candid fashion in which she had been apprised of the facts — for she was a delicate-minded girl, and she believed in maintaining as intact as possible the veil of discretion in which fastidious folks mask the raw nakedness of life. She was about to tear a deep rent in the gossamer fabric. The world would never look the same again to poor little Alice. But Sally was no coward, and she meant to acquit herself more creditably of her difficult task than her friend had done. She began after the fashion of some obsolete theo- logians, by dwelling upon the fact that the body should be really considered the shadow of the soul, and mar- riage, or the union of a man and woman, as the fleshly counterpart or symbol of their spiritual union. But that, of course, was not plain enough, and she was forced, against her inclination, in order to accomplish her self- appointed task, to be frank and plain, without any verbal embroidery or mystical embellishment. Alice looked at her blankly with horror in her eyes, and cried out : "Oh, Sally, I didn't think you were that sort of a girl " But the inchoate thought, inchoate and unshaped no longer, but full-born and clearly formulated, came and stared at Alice and smirked and laughed, and said, "You wouldn't listen to me, would you ?" Then had followed the necessity of breaking the en- gagement, for Alice was quite sure she would never care for Ned "in that way," as if any decent woman could ever care for any man in that way ! She didn't believe it, 20 THE GREATER JOY she wouldn't believe it, although Sally pityingly assured her that the ability to do so was what constituted the mystery of life. She felt so nauseated about the whole question of marriage that she was unable to touch food for several days, and whenever she thought of it, strange little spasms ran down her back and upward through her body. Her aunt refused to allow her to break the en- gagement, and when questioned as to her reasons for wishing to break it, she could give none. In her despair she went to Sally's mother, hoping that she would understand a detailed explanation, for Sally told her that it was really her mother and not herself who had suspected Alice's abysmal ignorance. Sally's mother understood, and promised to speak to Ned. She must have been a very brave woman to speak to him as she did, for when he refused to release Alice she told him roundly that the girl, when she promised to marry him, had had no conception of what the relations of hus- band and wife were. Had any one in the little village of Westerley imagined that Mrs. Hoskins could speak so frankly to a young man on such delicate matters, they would have considered her an improper person, for Wes- terley was one of those communities where a strange code of propriety prevails, and though a woman may marry and have children, yet she must never discuss "such matters," and must allow her daughter to go to her hus- band wholly unprepared and uninformed, unless by the intervention of some instinct or miracle, knowledge comes to her. So the engagement was definitely broken. Sally mar- ried a wealthy Bostonian, and her mother and father went abroad for a year. A little later Alice's aunt died. The young girl rented out the little homestead, and the rental, together with the meagre sum of money her aunt left THE GREATER JOY 21 her, brought her about five hundred dollars a year. This would have been an ample income for Westerley, but then a slight incident changed the entire current of her life. She fell ill, and an operation of the nose became neces- sary. Mrs. Hoskins happened to be back in New York at the time, and it was she who selected the hospital to which Alice was taken, and who selected the physician. The operation was not a very serious one, and the young girl found, to her surprise, that she was thoroughly en- joying her stay in the hospital. A very romantic girl, it seemed to Alice that to take care of the sick, to nurse them and make them happy and comfortable, was the most ideal work to which a woman could aspire. She thought she would like to be a nurse, and she spoke to Mrs. Hoskins about it. Mrs. Hoskins at first violently opposed the plan, but Alice was so in- sistent, that Sally's mother finally yielded. Alice had another reason for wishing to become a nurse. Her studies would take her away from Westerley, and she would not be forced to see Ned, who, since their unfor- tunate engagement, had inspired her with a sort of ter- ror, particularly as, soon after her new knowledge had come to her, she began to have a strange premonition of what love might some day mean to her. Of all this she thought, as she lay between sleeping and waking, and finally she fell asleep, wondering what the conqueror would be like, and when he would come into her life. CHAPTER II Alice was happy in the vocation she had selected. The work appealed to her, and she took a keen delight in the acquisition of medical knowledge. She was the youngest probationary nurse, and partly because of this, and partly because of her singular beauty, she was spoiled and pet- ted by every one. She decided to take up a course in medicine after finishing the course in nursing, and the resident physician, an elderly man, Doctor Etheridge, was extremely proud of his "youngest gosling," and em- braced every chance that offered itself of extending ex- ceptional opportunities to her. Connected with the hospital proper, where the nurses received their training, was the New York Institute of Medical Research, of which Doctor Etheridge was the actual head. The work of the institute was highly spe- cialized, and Alice, who had studied stenography in the Westerley High School, was frequently called upon to perform the duties of amanuensis for Doctor Etheridge when he prepared his notes for publication or for the records of the institute. Of course, Alice made a number of conquests that first year in the hospital, both among the physicians and among the patients. But while she liked some of her "victims" well enough, and was willing to be on perfectly friendly terms with them, they awakened no correspond- ing feeling in her. One of the patients was a very wealthy young man, and he was madly infatuated with her, and though she liked him very well indeed, she 22 THE GREATER JOY 23 would not consent to marry him. An inner voice warned her, whispered to her that the day would come when she would meet the man who indeed would be the man for her, who would dominate and enthrall her, whose personality would hold the subtle poison that would corrode her power of resistance, and make her willing to be moulded and shaped as he wished. The thought fascinated and horrified her. The woman in her was maturing quickly, and with it came the strange conviction that love would mean more for her than for the average woman; that it would mean com- plete and absolute surrender of herself. She could not explain this feeling. But it was strong, it persisted, it haunted her. She began horribly to fear meeting the man who would mean so much to her. One day there was brought into the hospital a man who was suffering from acromegalia. Alice had never before come in contact with this terrible disease. The man's hands and feet were almost twice their natural size; his head was enormous, repulsive, ghastly. His neck also had become enlarged, and the skin of his neck and throat had become baggy and pouchy, scaly, goitre- like. He was so weak that he could scarcely move, and he lay in a semi-comatose condition in the private room of the institute, into which he had been taken to facili- tate examination. Through the enlargement of his body, his epidermis had assumed an unsightly, leatherlike, coarse aspect. The network of the skin of the hands, usu- ally so fine as to be hardly perceptible, had become gro- tesquely conspicuous, veining hands and arms like deep canals cut through high, unsightly ridges. The pores yawned wide, like active craters, hideously, colossally re- pulsive. Every physician in town who heard of the case came in to look at the unfortunate man. As he was un- M THE GREATER JOY conscious, they speculated in the room where he lay as to the probable duration of his life, of the manner in which death would come, of the possible change in his condition immediately preceding dissolution. The second day after he had been brought in, Alice was on her way to the office on an errand, when she was stopped by the head-nurse, who was about to step into an elevator. The head-nurse seemed greatly flurried. "My dear Miss Vaughn/' she exclaimed, "just think of it. Doctor Baron von Dette and his cousin, Baroness Sylvia, are down stairs. I was on my way down stairs to help Doctor Etheridge entertain them. But an acci- dent has occurred in the operating room and I must go right up. Go and make my excuses, and do what you can to make things agreeable for the cousin. She is quite a young girl. Do your prettiest." The elevator began to move before she had ceased speaking, and Alice, dismayed and annoyed, was left to proceed alone to the office. There was that inflection in the head-nurse's voice as she spoke that told Alice that Doctor Baron von Dette was some distinguished man, although she had no recol- lection of having heard the name before. In pondering on the curious manner of the head-nurse, who was usually the most imperturbable of persons, a picture of the visitors formed itself upon the retina of her im- agination. Undoubtedly he was some yellow-haired, puffy, vul- gar-looking, none-too-clean savant, who, through one of Nature's freaks, had received the gift of a remarkable brain. She knew that type of foreigner only too well. Or he was some old, pinched-looking, weazened monkey sort of man; or again, some man of massive counte- nance, with a long, unkempt beard. The cousin, doubt- THE GREATER JOY 25 —■————■ — ■»— —■—■——■■■————— —————— less, was some pretty, simple, stupid creature. Alice's notions of foreigners were not flattering. But as she entered the little ante-room which adjoined the office, she became momentously aware that there was nothing commonplace about the von Dettes. Even as she entered the room, on its very threshold, she was ap- prized in some intangible, occult way that the atmosphere which these two beings exhaled was surcharged with an ineffable grace, an indescribable, delicate, subtle refine- ment The Baroness was a petite, very young, very pretty, piquant brunette, excessively animated in manner; but in spite of her girlishness, in spite of her astounding vivacity which was discernible even when she was in re- pose, there was about her nothing callow or gauche. She carried herself wonderfully well. Alice had never seen such distinction in any woman, and this struck her as all the mort remarkable because of the extreme youth and slight stature of her visitor. Her toilette was per- fect. There was nothing offensively modish, nothing blatantly fashionable about it. The singular chic of her coiffure, her hat, her gown, bewildered Alice; the taste was so apparent, so well-defined, so undeniable, and the style was so intangible, so obliterated, so elusive. All this Alice grasped on the instant. In another mo- ment she had glanced at the young girl's cousin, Doctor Baron von Dette. A man more than ordinarily tall, dark in complexion like his cousin, of undefinable age, wonderfully, almost insolently, well-groomed, with pallid hands and a pallid face and strangely luminous eyes, with a personality that was singularly effective, not so much for forcefulness conveyed as for forcefulness masked and hidden from sight. There was some latent strength in the man, 26 THE GREATER JOY something vaguely titanic, some Herculean power that might become terrifying. But all this was not suggested by his languidly graceful manner which seemed rather to imperfectly veil the slumbering volcanic forces that were at work somewhere under the suave, smiling ex- terior of the famous physician. And what seemed most salient of all to Alice was that this man's presence car- ried with it the air of a man of the world, a man of lei- sure and pleasure, rather than that of the professional man whose activity is purely intellectual and never ma- terial. She delivered the message to Doctor Etheridge and was introduced by him to the von Dettes. As the Baron bowed to her and then reseated himself, a strange, in- stinctive feeling of terror came over her. There was something colossal in that reserve strength of his. It seemed like a menace, it irritated her, fascinated her, moved her. When, after greeting her, he swept his eyes downward over her person and away from her, she seemed for one moment to be placed by herself on some lofty, isolated pinnacle, and there came an illusion to her as of a ribbon of light streaming from his eyes, a magic ribbon of light of no color, such as the moon sheds upon the rippling water in summer, or a searchlight swinging carelessly hither and thither, from sea to sky, from sky to sea, intertwining, interlacing, interweaving, impreg- nating and caressing the sea, and rending and piercing the heavens. Breaking the awkward silence, Doctor Etheridge said : "Doctor von Dette is anxious to see our beautiful case of acromegalia, Miss Vaughn, and now you have come, and as the Baroness does not care to admire our inter- esting specimen, we will leave her in your care." "It is very good of Miss Vaughn to take the time to THE GREATER JOY 27 entertain my cousin," said Doctor von Dette carelessly. There was something in his manner of speaking, or in the voice, that irritated Alice unspeakably. Like his cousin, he spoke English perfectly. That he was a for- eigner was evinced, not by an accent, but by a peculiar cadence, a sort of musical intonation of the voice. The two young women were left alone. "Men are very heartless," said the Baroness. "Fancy speaking so frivolously of such a terrible case." "The heartlessness is pretended rather than real," re- plied Alice indulgently. The Baroness smiled archly. With an amused glance from her dark eyes, she said: "I forgot that I was speaking to a trained nurse." "Who some day hopes to be a physician," added the girl quickly. The Baroness settled herself very comfortably in her arm-chair, and regarded her companion with unfeigned astonishment. "Do you really care so very much for an active life ?" she asked. "Why, yes, of course," said Alice, showing her sur- prise at the question. "You are too beautiful to care a rap about the devel- opment of your brain capacity," said the Baroness calm- ly, with an air of finality. "It is a crime, nothing less, for a woman as beautiful as you are to develop anything but her beauty and the art of living." Alice was amazed at this cynical view expressed by a girl at least a year her junior, but she did not betray her surprise. "If a woman has not the means to cultivate the art of living," she responded, "it is perhaps wise to cultivate the means of living." 28 THE GREATER JOY The Baroness laughed. Her laugh was frank, low- pitched and utterly sincere. "If you had thought only of cultivating the art of liv- ing, you would not have had to bother about the other." Alice smiled at the petulance with which the words were uttered. "Tell me," she said mischievously, "just what do you designate as 'the art of living ?' " "First, last and all the time, the art of making your- self as pleasing as possible to the eye." "To the feminine or to the masculine eye?" demanded Alice. The Baroness sent forth a delicious peal of laughter. "Frankly," she said, "what is your opinion? Do women dress for women or for men?" "That means, I suppose, do women dress to annoy women or to please men?" "You are adorable," cried the Baroness, and placing her muff across her knees, she folded her hands over it with a charming gesture of complete abandon. "Tell me," she entreated, "which is it?" Alice regarded the young girl seated before her in this beseeching attitude intently, as she would have exam- ined a beautiful picture, and felt a thrill of pleasure as she noted the various perfections of person and manner of the charming little Dresden China figure — the soft, olive-complexioned face with the rose-glow in the cheeks illumined by a pair of the most wonderful brown eyes. They were a soft, velvety brown, like the petals of a pansy, or the wing of a butterfly. They seemed like a pair of gems, like mysterious jewels, polished to incred- ible smoothness and alive with some inner flame. "Which is it?" repeated the Baroness. Alice passed her hand lightly over her eyes. She had THE GREATER JOY £9 become serious suddenly. She found herself powerless to fling back some idle badinage in response to the ques- tion. It seemed to her that a truthful reply was re- quired, that some matter of pith and moment, something of great weight depended upon the veracity with which she would reply. "Is it not a matter of character, of temperament, of the individual ?" she said, and as she gazed at the young girl sitting opposite to her, from whose lips the smile had gradually died away; it seemed to her that this strange, handsome creature was studying her furtively, searchingly, as if to surprise her in some expression that would bare her very soul. She became perplexed. To recover herself, she continued the conversation. "Yourself," she said, "let us take yourself, for in- stance. You dress, do you not, solely to please your- self?" "You are wrong," said the Baroness quietly. "Some day I will tell you for whom I dress, for I am sure we shall be friends — you and I." Rising abruptly, she walked rapidly the entire length of the room, and back again. She halted before Alice, her manner betraying agitation. "Yes, friends," she repeated softly. "It must be." And these words, tragic of import, charged with some occult meaning, prophetic of some malignancy of fate, she uttered lightly, barely breathing the words, letting them flutter, as it were, from her lips. Then she came and stood a little closer to Alice than before. "How fair you are!" she exclaimed "One would think you were a German." "And you, one would think you were an American — your English is so fluent." 30 THE GREATER JOY The Baroness gave a silvery, rippling laugh. "Ever since I can remember," she said, "I have spoken English. I had three governesses, one English, one German, one French, and these governesses and their respective languages alternated one with the other. Ulrich says it is the only thing I do well — express my- self. You must know he detests nothing so much as an unscientific mind. Poor Ulrich !" "Ulrich is the Doctor Baron, I presume — or should I say the Baron Doctor ?" said Alice. "Does the inherited title rank the acquired title?" The Baroness looked vastly amused. "The acquired title ranks the inherited title," she re- plied, "as you put it. I would say 'we keep the title we are born with closer to our skins than the other.' " Alice's eyes twinkled. This girl certainly was deli- cious. "I should think," she responded, "since you choose to put it that way, that you would keep the title that is earned closer 'to your skins.' Is a title earned by one's brains not better than an inherited title?" The Baroness became grave. "Brains are so plentiful, so abundant, nowadays," she said, "that to possess them no longer confers a dis- tinction." She sighed. There was no insolence in her voice, although the words in themselves were arrogant. "Nothing really confers distinction nowadays," she continued moodily, "excepting a great sorrow." She seated herself again, and looked across at Alice with a strange look of yearning in her beautiful, soulful eyes. Her animation, in spite of her gravity, had not abated in the least. It had perhaps become a trifle accentuated. It seemed to Alice as if there were a note of hysteria in THE GREATER JOY 31 her manner, and when she spoke again it was with an inflection that seemed to be propelled by some extrane- ous force. "That is what I desire," she said quickly, "to be dis- tinguished by the visitation of some devastating grief, some indomitable sorrow." And, oddly enough, there seemed nothing morbid ap- parently in this young girl's strange desire for immola- tion. "I have desired always to be vulgarly happy/' said Alice. "You cannot really mean that," said the Baroness. The words came swiftly, with unseasonable incisiveness. "You are too beautiful to be Vulgarly happy.' Nature does not create paragons of physical perfection to tor- ture them with an ordinary enjoyment of life. You will be either superhumanly happy or agonizingly miserable." Again she rose and stood before Alice. "How beautiful you are!" she said. "How beautiful your hair is ! I would like to touch it. I will not dis- arrange it!" And carefully, tenderly, exquisitely, after taking off her glove, she passed her ringers through the girl's blonde hair. "How beautiful you are!" she repeated slowly, abruptly. A look of pain came into her eyes, and puckered her mouth into a quivering crimson line. Suddenly she stopped and kissed Alice on the forehead. "I hope you will be Vulgarly happy/ nevertheless," she said. There was a noble simplicity in the words. Alice's wonder grew. What did it all mean? It was many weeks before she was destined to know. After that, the Baroness walked to the window, and THE GREATER JOY gazed out upon the flagstones of the court abstractedly. Alice was strangely troubled. As the young girl had kissed her, there had shuddered through her the thought of this girl's cousin, so handsome, so dark, so distin- guished. Then came over her a terrible nervousness, such as she had never known before. And in the wake of this nervousness came terror. The atmosphere in the room seemed to become heavy, portentous, the air beat between them unquietly. In some unaccountable way Fate had bound into one strand the many that weave themselves into a human life, into a Gordian knot. A barrier seemed raised between her and that little, fragile figure gazing so intently with unseeing eyes upon the flagstones of the court. The kiss upon Alice's brow she felt had marked the beginning of some sinister, irreme- diable fate. "How long they are !" said Alice finally. She felt bewildered, ill at ease. She desired to make her escape. Without she heard the voice of Doctor von Dette, and its softness, its insinuating cadence, irritated her and annoyed her. And when he stood before her, uttering some com- monplace remarks, there swept over her with renewed vigor the impression that this man was pre-eminently a man of the world, not a savant; he impressed her as a man perfectly dressed, perfectly mannered and perfectly fed. By what devilish, devious subtlety of the imagination, by what occult pulsing of the senses, hers and his in unison, had the fascination of the man seized her? She trembled. She shuddered. The cold beads of perspiration stood upon her brow. But she could not dispel the thought. This was a man who had denied himself nothing. He had partaken of the banquet of life THE GREATER JOY and love whenever caprice had impelled or appetite had dictated; he had fathomed its depths, its every mystery, had steeped himself in its essence. And the knowledge he had gained had remained to abide with him forever, and becausce of all this, because of the omnipresence of his reminiscences, he had drawn over himself that cold, impassive, immobile mask. What was this man's true character? As she asked herself the question, she caught his glance, travelling over her person slowly, devouringly. It seemed to dis- robe her, to scorch her flesh. The desire to escape was almost uncontrollable. Doctor Etheridge spoke, and the sound of his voice seemed to break the spell. She pulled herself together violently. He was telling her that Doctor von Dette was anxious to go over his various notes on nervous diseases, of which he made a specialty. As Miss Vaughn was the only nurse competent to take stenographic notes, and was also thoroughly familiar with Doctor Ethe- ridge's memoranda, Doctor von Dette had requested that she be relieved from duty for a few mornings to assist him. "That is," von Dette put in in his unnaturally soft, caressing voice, "if wholly agreeable to you.'* Alice murmured her acquiescence. What else could she do? And all the while she felt these strangely lumi- nous eyes gliding over her, enmeshing her, feasting upon her. "If ever I fall ill, you must nurse me," said the Baron- ess. "Promise." Alice promised. "Meanwhile you must visit me, and if it is permitted, I shall call upon you." They were gone at last, and Doctor Etheridge with 34 THE GREATER JOY them. The girl was left alone. But there remained with her a keen, almost violent recollection of him in whose personality lurked the subtle poison which would corrode and disintegrate her power of resistance, which was, she felt sure, to cause her untold misery and anguish. She realized her danger, and trembled. What could she do, how avert the peril that threatened? She could not run away. She had not even the inclination. She could no more help desiring to meet this man again than she could help breathing. CHAPTER III Ulrich von Dette, attired in a dark red velvet dress- ing robe, sat in a comfortable arm-chair, before an open blazing gas-log fire, smoking the cigarettes which served him as a night-cap. Incidentally he was thinking. "I expect to be in New York four or five months at most," he said half-aloud. "The question is : How long will it take me to win her?" He slid into a more comfortable position, one more conducive to hard thinking. Undoubtedly she was the most delicious thing he had ever seen. If he succeeded in winning her, it would make his stay in New York very much pleasanter than he had anticipated. He won- dered whether she had ever had a lover. He thought not. If she had, it would of course facilitate his woo- ing ; a week would suffice for the enactment of the pro- logue, for the little preliminary comedy of fine speeches and love-making which good taste and breeding re- quired. He hoped she had not had a lover. It would be an incomparable experience to be the first to initiate so delicious a creature into the mysteries of love. He did not believe she had had a lover. There was about her something so girlish, so pristine, so maidenly. And this pale, slim girl was Diana-like. She was perfect ! Yet who can read women? Even he had sometimes blundered. His cigarette, burning down, scorched his finger. He flung it into the open fire, and lit another. 35 36 THE GREATER JOY Sylvia had dropped a remark about Miss Vaughn's cleverness. Of course women had different notions from men of what constituted cleverness in women. Still he considered Sylvia a fair judge. The girl had struck him also as clever; Doctor Etheridge had praised her braininess. Possibly she was the type of woman who would develop her brain at the expense of her looks, and who, at forty, would be an authority on juvenile diseases and dress like a frump. At all events, at present she was delicious, delectable. He thought of Shakespeare's words, "sport for Jove.'' But it was only her really remarkable beauty that made him think of these words. But he could not afford to become too deeply interested in her, since, in the course of events, he would have to terminate the affair four or five months hence. It was possible that he would not succeed in winning her. American working women, that is, women of pure American stock, were notoriously chaste, very different from their self-supporting sisters of the Continent, who claimed a lover as one of their inalienable privileges in return for the burden of self-support. It was worth a trial, at any rate, and if he did not succeed, even a mere flirtation would afford him considerable pleasure and re- laxation. He needed both; he had worked shockingly hard, like a galley-slave, ever since his arrival three weeks ago. He could not spare the time to take an act- ive interest in sport, and moreover, while he was fond of horses and interested in aeronautics, there was no sport in the world comparable to the wooing and the winning of a woman. Nothing relaxed him so complete- ly, and his nerves were really quite unstrung from the amount of work he had put in during the past three weeks. He was visiting the hospitals, and making notes THE GREATER JOY 37 of all unusual cases, and he had performed as many as five operations in one day since his arrival, because all the hospitals, whose courtesies he had claimed and ac- cepted, had asked him to perform at least one operation for the benefit of their medical staff. He was only twenty-nine, but he had already made a name for himself in the medical world by the discovery of a fluid, which, when injected into the tissues and muscles surrounding the part to be operated upon imme- diately before the operation, had the effect of driving back the blood from the blood vessels of these parts, thereby enabling the surgeon to perform a bloodless operation. Considerable skill and judgment, however, were required in injecting the fluid, for if not enough were injected, the astringed veins and arteries would expand before the operation was completed, and con- siderable loss of blood would result, or if too much of the fluid were injected, the veins would remain sealed too long, and the flow of blood be retarded unduly. This discovery of his, and his cultures of the pneumo- coccus on agar plates, had made him famous. Sometimes he regretted his rank. For months at a time he had de- voted himself exclusively to science, impregnating him- self with its spirit, and then suddenly he would feel the incubus of his rank, and at such times it was impossible for him to forget that he might some day be called upon to occupy a throne, and even if that possibility, which was remote, did not occur, it was a matter of months only before his grandfather, the present king, who was very feeble, would die, and he would be called upon to assume the regency for the future king, the present heir- apparent, who was a boy of eight. The name of Baron von Dette was of course only a medical incognito he em- ployed when travelling. 38 THE GREATER JOY He lit another cigarette. Would he succeed in win- ning this pretty nurse? The outcome was uncertain. Suddenly he remembered how the pupil of her eye had invaded the iris, changing the color of her eye from blue to black during the fraction of the moment in which he had held her glance. That made him more certain of success. He must have made some sort of an impression on her, and with young girls — she could not be more than twenty-one — first impressions were potent. If he succeeded, he reflected that she had a reputation to lose. Doctor Etheridge had spoken very highly of her, and it would therefore not do to compromise her by going where either he or she might be recognized. A man of honor considered that it was incumbent upon a gentleman to safeguard in every possible way the repu- tation of a woman. He would have to secure an apart- ment. It would be wise to do this at once. The apart- ment would not be wholly wasted, at any rate, for if he did not succeed with her, he would have to find some one else. He reached for the memorandum pad on which he jotted down notes for his valet. Hahn had an im- peccable taste and had acquitted himself creditably in delicate missions of the sort before. Hahn must find him an apartment to-morrow. He threw away the cigarette end and reached for an- other. He found to his surprise that he had finished the entire box. He laughed. It occurred to him that, in- credible though it was, he was actually a trifle in love with this pale, fragile girl whom he had seen that day for the first time. Certainly her face seemed to dance before his eyes in the bluish gas flames, and it seemed to assume expressions which he had not seen there. Perhaps his calculations were not quite as cold-blooded as he himself believed. THE GREATER JOY S9 A good strategist, he opened his campaign the next day. They had workel all morning over Doctor Ethe- ridge's culture notes. Ulrich was amazed once or twice at the insight Alice evinced in forestalling his remarks, and in tendering whatever explanations were necessary. He said nothing to her until they had finished their morning's work. Then he said: "You do your work admirably, Miss Vaughn. You have been well trained ?" "I assist Doctor Etheridge a good deal, as you have heard," she answered evasively. He noticed that she avoided looking at him. "Do you lunch now ?" "No, not yet." She lifted her head, and this time she looked straight at him. Quickly she added : "We have an hour and a half for lunch and exercise. Before eat- ing, I always go to the Park for a brisk walk." "I am going in that direction," he said courteously. "May I drop you at the Park? My automobile is wait- ing." She hesitated before answering, and the troubled look that came into her eyes did not escape him. "It won't take me out of my way in the least," he urged, misunderstanding her hesitation. A quick flush mounted to her brow. With ready tact he realized that she resented his assumption that he was offering to take her in order to please her, rather than himself. "Thank you, I'll walk," she said coldly. He felt a throbbing in his temples. Decidedly she was worth while. She understood fine nuances. Good! He would exert himself as he had never exerted himself be- fore. He, breaker of hearts, known throughout Europe 40 THE GREATER JOY for his success with women, would not fail here. She had mettle; all the better. He would show her what a finely-tempered, dominant, polished man was. He as- sumed his most ingratiating air ; the little rivulets of light streamed freely forth from his eyes. His manner was almost a caress ; his voice as intimate as a kiss. "If you are going to walk, will you at least permit me to walk with you ? I am somewhat downcast this morn- ing about news I received from home, and I had hoped you would give me the pleasure of your company. There is nothing so cheering in the world as a brisk talk with a clever, congenial woman." She looked at him, a trifle distrustfully, he thought. Again she avoided his eyes. "I shall be glad to have you come with me," she said at length, in a voice devoid of all expression. She went for her hat and coat, and when she came downstairs, he was waiting for her on the sidewalk be- side his machine. "Shall we ride or walk?" he asked gently. By some trick of the imagination, it seemed to her as if he had stood in that position waiting for her many times before, — as if they were old friends. She shook off the lethargy that was threatening to en- tomb her, but she could find no voice to answer him. She shivered slightly. "If we ride," he said coaxingly, "we shall have so much more time in the Park." Without a word, she walked to the touring car. She felt him touch her elbow, as he helped her step into the car. When they reached the Park, he asked her whether she would not just as soon ride through the Park as walk. It had been drizzling, and the pavements were THE GREATER JOY 41 sticky and uninviting. The quick motion of the car had exhilarated her blood, and with a little toss of her head to shift her hat into position, she said : "Let us ride, if it does not interfere with your sched- ule." On the contrary, he assured her, she was doing a good deed. He lapsed into silence, and she stole a furtive glance at him. He was younger than she had at first thought. But the colossal reserve strength was all there, plainly visible in every lineament. He was really very handsome, very distinguished-looking, and with a little thrill of pleasure, she noted that his fur coat was real seal, and that the cap of sealskin which he wore had a jaunty turban-like appearance, giving his face a soft glow like a woman's. She felt a sudden desire to bend over and kiss him. Then came a quick reaction. Seized with fright, she had the sensation of having been mad for a moment, and she was not quite sure that she had not been momentarily out of her mind and had not actually kissed him. She averted her face, and pressed her left arm against her wildly beating heart. Why had she come out with him? She had known when she saw him the first time that he was the man. Why did he not speak to her? Euro- pean men did not wait for women to take the lead in con- versation, but did most of the talking themselves. But he was waiting for her to say something. Never had she felt so green and callow and stupid. There was not a thing she could think of to say. Suddenly an idea seemed to float before her vision. She sighed. "How long do you intend remaining in New York, Doctor?" "It is curious, Miss Vaughn, I was just taking inven- tory of the time that remains. Three or four weeks at 42 THE GREATER JOY most. And I have so many things to do in that time — one thing in particular." As he spoke the last phrase, he looked at her linger- ingly in the gentle, languid, luxurious manner peculiar to him, and once more she was thrilled with fear. She wanted to ask: "What particular thing?" But she re- membered that it would be a horribly ill-bred thing to do, and she suppressed the words, choked them down, swallowed them. Instead she said casually: "You are a very busy man?" "Yes, very." And quite suddenly he leaned forward, over her, and a mad thought came into her head that he was about to embrace her. His face was within an inch of hers. It seemed to her that her respiration was sus- pended from terror and fright. He said: "Pardon me, Miss Vaughn. You are entirely uncov- ered. I want to tuck that robe about you more se- curely." She thanked him, and he deftly tucked her in. She noticed the good breeding he displayed in not touching as much as her garment as he secured the lap-robe. Back in the hospital at last, she flung herself face down upon her bed. An abyss of iniquity seemed to open before her. She knew that some of the nurses in the hospital allowed the men to kiss them, but since her school-days, when Ned had kissed her cheek — and he in those days had seemed like a brother — she had permitted no man to take any liberties. And yet she had felt an actual desire to kiss this man who was an utter stranger to her, this after she had connected him in thought with loose women. The shame of it! It seemed to her that she had fallen into a bottomless pit of turpitude. Then she thought of his handsome sealskin coat, the costly scarf pin he wore, his beautiful manners. She had never THE GREATER JOY 43 seen any clothes hang quite as well upon a man as his did. She was thankful she had bought the pony-coat at Christmas. A hundred dollars had seemed a terrible price to pay for a garment, and she had thought that she looked like a millionaire's daughter in it. But his seal- skin coat now made her feel shabby and poor. She also decided to wear next day a white uniform with hand- embroidered cuffs and collar, but she suddenly recalled it was in the wash. Ulrich von Dette was too much of an artist in love- making to repeat a ruse, no matter how successful. The next day he did not leave his machine at the door, nor did he ask permission to walk with her; but when Alice appeared on the steps, he was waiting for her, and he joined her as if it were the natural thing to do. She could not keep the look of pleasure out of her eyes when she saw him waiting for her. It was only after they had walked a block that he said : "I hope you don't mind my coming along so uncere- moniously. I enjoyed our talk so much yesterday." Alice was in a more mischievous mood than the day before, and besides it was even nicer to go pacing down the street with him swinging alongside of her than to sit in a touring car with nothing to do but tilt one's face against the wind. So she said roguishly: "If you really enjoyed our talk yesterday, Doctor, you must believe that intellectual silences make conversation, for I am sure we were both very silent." "She is adorable," he thought. Taking the hint, he exerted himself to entertain her. He was a clever talker, neither frothy nor heavy, and as they fed the squirrels in the Park with peanuts, he spoke of various things. He asked her to go to the picture gallery in the Metropolitan Museum with him, and he was surprised 44 THE GREATER JOY when she told him that she knew hardly any of the great paintings of the collection. "Nature is so much nicer than Art can ever be," she explained, laughing to cover her confusion. "A real landscape, you must admit, is finer than any painter can represent it." Then he explained to her that what made art valuable and dignified was not the mere counterfeit presentment of some real thing, but the temperament of the artist un- consciously revealed by him in handling his subject. And he cited the manner in which various masters had painted sunsets to illustrate his contention. Inness, he said, was dominated by the sheerly sensuous, perfectly sane beauty of dark-limbed, rough trees and a golden expanse of sky when he painted his famous canvas "Sunset at Mont- clair." Diaz rebelled against mere rioting in sensuous charm of full-throated color. He wanted the outlying trees in his innumerable forest scenes to speak of the super-sensuous, romantic suggestion of darkling lanes of trees approaching an open copse, where the sun sends down its blaze of golden radiance. Daubigny loved light and brightness, loved it unrelieved by shadows, but he never forgot that the sun which warms and dazzles also sucks up the vapory substances from the earth and the rivers to convert them into rain, and so we see all his landscapes robed in a dewiness, a moisture that is all his own and which no one else has portrayed because no one else had the genius to see it. What BJakeslock loved best at sunset was the violent contrast afforded by black- seeming leaves and branches silhouetted boldly and sharply against the sulphurous veil spread by the dying sun. Rousseau, too, loved this, but Rousseau was too comprehensive to allow his joy in a part to usurp his joy in the whole, and, therefore, where Blakeslock painted THE GREATER JOY 45 only leaves or branches against a yellow sky, because he was too full of their beauty to have eyes for anything else, Rousseau painted an entire landscape, showed us the entire tree standing against a glow of golden-rai- mented heaven, but along the outskirts the gold was modulated to amber, and that fainter shade, that paler gold was a premonition that the cloth of gold spread like an arras behind the tree cannot last but must wane and disappear. And in introducing this note of proph- ecy, in suggesting the evanescence of the glory he has pictorially depicted, Rousseau has added and superim- posed sublimity upon mere beauty. Monticulli saw in a sunset what he saw in everything else — rhythm pri- marily, rhythm of golden light, which, in fixing upon canvas, he transmuted into visible music. His figures of fine ladies and splendid gentlemen, of cherubs and chil- dren, of stately trees and statelier palaces, are depicted not because the artist considered them beautiful in them- selves, but because only by these means, by graceful swish of dainty skirt, by languorous grace of bent knee, could he portray the rhythm which underlies all Nature and all Art, and which he loved so frantically. The pig- ment he used has not preserved the outline of his paint- ings. They are for the most part mere splotches of color, but so potent was this artist's personality, so com- plete his obsession by the idea which dominated him, that we can feel the pulsing of those bodies whose out- lines are no longer distinguishable as they danced, or made love, or promenaded. And their insufficient pres- ervation makes them more precious; — like the torsos of Greece, whose mutilated condition spurs the imagination not to mere futility of effort at restoration, but to the abiding conviction that nothing that we see in actual completion, no matter how beautiful, can be as flawless 46 THE GREATER JOY and as perfect as these ancient statues of Greece must have been. As for Corot, Ulrich said he was not quite certain, but he believed Corot had never done an actual sunset. Corot was eminently a lyric poet of the highest and finest order, and so drastically epic a subject as the fanfare of trumpets which attend a sunset would necessarily not have appealed to him, would perhaps have been resented by him as being a trifle gauche. Corot was a lyric poet with the delicacy of touch of a Keats or a Shelley, and certain topics he proscribed, being satisfied to suggest them as having recently occurred or as being about to occur. No painter, no poet, either, for that matter, had understood the marvellous potency of suggestion as Co- rot had done, or had understood so fully the true wiz- ardry of brush and canvas and color as implements to conjure up a picture for the mind's eye rather than to paint it for the actual, physical vision. At the end of this little impromtu lecture, he made her promise to come to the Museum with him some day. She promised. With the spell of his voice and of the mar- vellous reach of his imagination still upon her, she would have promised him more — much more. As he walked back with her he said : "We have only four more mornings' work before us, Miss Vaughn, that is all." It had never occurred to her to answer that they had so far worked together only two. He had succeeded admirably in his intention of creating in her the impres- sion of having known him indefinitely. "Will you allow me to see you after we are through with our work ?" he asked. She smiled softly to hide the joy his question gave her. THE GREATER JOY 47 "Why, yes, if you wish. If you have time." "They allow you to receive visitors, don't they ?" "Yes, twice a week. Wednesdays and Sundays." "Is that all ? Then there's no help for it. I certainly cannot be content to see you only twice a week. You will have to call on me. Will you ?" She turned her head and looked him straight into his eyes. There was a query in her own that seemed to blind her against seeing him. He quailed a little. "Baroness Sylvia has asked me to call on her also," she said quickly. "Would it be good form for me to call at the house without a further invitation?" His heart exulted as he perceived that she was by far more clever than he had thought. He answered : "I have taken an apartment further down town for myself. The house on Riverside Drive is so far up. It was my apartment that I referred to when I asked you to call. Sylvia will, of course, be delighted to see you at Riverside Drive." He saw that her lips trembled, and for a moment he thought that she was about to cry. Her nervousness was apparent when she spoke. "Doctor von Dette, I do not know, of course, what the custom is abroad. But here it is not considered the right thing for a young woman to visit a man's apart- ments." "Oh, it's a bit unconventional, I admit," he replied eas- ily. "But for two sensible persons, like you and I, both so deeply interested in science, it's all right, of course. I have some lovely pneumococcus cultures and a rabbit inoculated with a serum guaranteed to be a lep- rosy serum. You love rodents, you know." "I don't love rodents at all," she retorted quickly. "And if I did, I would hardly want the poor things tc 48 THE GREATER JOY have leprosy foisted upon them. I do not know that I'm as much interested in science as you imagine." He smiled as he answered: "Perhaps you are a little more interested in me than I dare hope." "I do not see the relevancy," she objected. He put his hands in her arm, in answer, and walked along with her a few steps in that way. "Please let go my arm," she protested. "We are walk- ing along like Darby and Joan." "I wish we were," he said insinuatingly. "I don't," she retorted indifferently. "Cruel!" "Not at all!" she laughed. "Darby and Joan are al- ways pictured as two old, shrivelled persons. It's much nicer to have all of life before us, to be young as we are, and tolerably good looking." "Oh, thank you," he said with mock effusiveness. Saucily, to cover her confusion at having paid him a part compliment, she replied : "I said 'tolerably.' " He laughed. "Alice," he murmured, "you are awfully nice." "You must not call me Alice," she protested. He mimicked her manner. "You must not correct me so much." They both laughed. "Alice," he said, "will you allow me to kiss you ?" Some quality of his voice or eyes or both went to her head. She seemed suffused, bathed in sweet lassitude. Hardly knowing what she said, she answered : "I do not know whether I will allow you to kiss me or not. But I am quite sure that whether or not you have my permission, you are going to kiss me." THE GREATER JOY 49 "You are adorable," he said in an earnest, rhapsodical sort of way. "If we were not on the street I would kiss you now." "Then it is well that we are on the street." "Don't be cruel — don't say you're glad of it." "I didn't say I was glad of it. But I am." He caught her hand in his, and pressed it. "No, Alice, you are not." "You must not say such things to me. Please let go my hand." "Will you not come to see me at seven o'clock to- night? Here, I am slipping my address into your muff." She shook it out of her muff, as if the card meant con- tamination. It fell upon the pavement. "I didn't mean to throw it down," she said gently. "But I don't want the address. Release my hand, please." He obeyed her and picked up the card. "Alice," he said earnestly, "I am very much in love with you." "How can that be?" she said banteringly. "You have known me just a week." "Ask yourself how such things are possible. You are quite as much in love with me, as I am with you." "I am not," she said. There was a ring of defiance in her voice. "More so, perhaps," he suggested pleasantly. "Is that what you mean?" She became angry, blindly angry. She knew he spoke the truth. She wanted to say something to hurt him bitterly, but she could think of nothing. He said again in the same low, caressing tone as before : "Alice, will you come and see me at seven?" 50 THE GREATER JOY "No, I will not. You must understand, Doctor von Dette, that I am not that sort of girl." "What sort of a girl?" he demanded, raising his eye- brows, as if not understanding. "The sort of girl who calls on a man," she said limply. He saw that he was gradually undermining her self-pos- session. "I really cannot see why you should feel as you do about it," he said, assuming a tone that was all innocence and honey. "If you should decide to come, we shall have a nice little supper — no wine, of course. That would be improper for two young people alone ; and after supper I will show you my cultures — they really are beauties — and if you play, you will be good enough to play something for me. And then we will sit and talk till it is time for you to go home. And that is all — quite all." She lowered her head, and bringing her muff up to her chin, looked at him searchingly. He thought she was en- tirely grave and serious, until he saw a quiver of sup- pressed merriment at the corners of her mouth. "And are you quite sure, Doctor, that you will not even kiss me?" "Would you be very much disappointed if I didn't ?" He expected her to show blind anger as before, but she merely caught her breath, closed her eyes for one brief instant, and brought her teeth together with a sharp click. He wondered whether she wished that she had his shoul- der or his cheek between her teeth. She was probably a good deal more passionate than he had imagined. "Doctor von Dette," she said in a smooth voice, that set every fibre in him vibrating, "you know very well, and I know it, too, that if I came to your rooms you would kiss me, and that I would come in expectation of your kisses." THE GREATER JOY 51 "Yes, I am quite sure of that," he said easily, "but if I were to tell you all I am sure of, you'd be very angry, I'm afraid." "What do you mean ?" she demanded, indignant again. "You know very well what I mean," he replied cryptic- ally. He had not the remotest notion himself what he meant. But phrases such as these he had always found very efficient; very useful in similar cases. To worry and torment a woman until she does not know in what direction to turn, until weary to death from opposing her will against the man's, she succumbs and yields — that, as he knew, was the best policy to pursue. "Good-bye," she said coldly. He lifted his hat. "Auf Wiedersehen," he said amiably. "Till to-morrow morning." That night she was late in getting to bed. Her hand- embroidered uniform had come up from the laundry, and she sat for upwards of an hour before retiring, thinking about the advisability of wearing it. Of course he would know that she had put it on especially for his sake, and so would everybody else ; but, on the other hand, she felt very much more at ease when perfectly costumed, and she expected to be very nervous with him the next day. She fell asleep finally, having decided that she would not wear the embroidered gown, and feeling quite certain that she would. As she had anticipated, she was very nervous the next day, and made many and foolish blunders, each one of which he took pleasure in pointing out to her, explaining the error in a half pitying, half patient way that exasper- ated her. When they were through with the work, he said : "I have my car downstairs. I am not going anywhere 52 THE GREATER JOY in particular this afternoon. If you like, we can go for a quick spin up Riverside Drive. I will let the machine go, and we can be back by one o'clock. What say you ?" She declined politely but firmly. "Oh, come now," he said in an off-hand, drawing-room manner, "don't be foolish, please. What's the use of feel- ing like this? I'll behave myself, I will really. You must admit I've been admirable this morning." "Yes, you have." "There, that's nice of you, Miss Vaughn. Please don't refuse to come with me. Don't spoil the first free after- noon I've had in a month." It was really a shame to see him so put out, but she could not resist parrying a while longer. It was so sweet to see him beg. "You're a very dangerous man," she said. "Dangerous ! What a word ! Dangerous ! You can't possibly suppose that I intend kidnapping you for the purpose of inoculating you with leprosy serum or making cultures on you !" He was irresistible. She could not help laughing. "I wish you'd stop talking about your silly cultures." "Hush, my dear," he said in a paternal way, "the cul- tures of the famous Doctor von Dette are no more silly than he is." "Sometimes I'm afraid the famous Doctor von Dette is very silly." "About you, Alice — only about you." "You really must stop calling me by my first name." "You can revenge yourself easily. My first name is Ul- rich." She tried not to smile. "I really think you had better go without me to-day, Doctor." THE GREATER JOY 58 "Alice, please, please come. Really, my dear, you will make me profoundly unhappy if you don't. Look here, don't take everything I say so seriously. As you so suc- cinctly remarked, I am at times, rather silly." She was beginning to thaw visibly. "Alice," he begged, "why waste time so wantonly? Ten minutes gone with our bickering." 'Til hurry," she said. He had no chauffeur with him that day. He had a speedy machine, painted white, which she had not seen before, and he "let her go," as he had promised. The touring car lurched and swung and rolled onward at a pace that violated all speed ordinances. It sent the boisterous April wind whizzing about their ears like a buzz-saw. Alice closed her eyes and gave herself over to the de- light of flying along. Presently a strange, semi-somnam- bulent feeling came over her. She felt as if she were falling asleep, and she thought that it must be very sweet to pillow her head against the strong, seal-skin clad shoul- der of the strong man beside her. She seemed to lose track of time. Suddenly she opened her eyes with a start. They were flying along over open country, the river sparkling to the left like a diamond-strewn silver shield. She exclaimed in surprise: "Where are we?" He did not reply to her question, but said : "Did you enjoy your nap?" "I believe I did have a nap — just a cat-nap. Where are we?" "Somewhere near Two-hundredth street, beyond Uni- versity Heights." "What time is it?" she cried in alarm. "We must have been out over an hour." 54 THE GREATER JOY He assented. "I am sorry. I forgot you had to be back by one. I thought you were asleep, and I did not wish to waken you by turning the machine." "Please turn it now." He did so immediately. They had the wind against them now. It was a raw April day, more reminiscent of February than prophetic of May, and the wind from the river cut their faces like sleet. He slackened the speed. "Have you no veil?" he asked. "No." There was a queer looking little house a quarter of a mile off, and as the distance diminished, they saw that it was a combination pin and needle and grocery store. "Perhaps we can get a veil for you there," he said. "Your face will be cruelly chapped unless you put some- thing over it to protect it." "I have no money with me," she said in an awkward, subdued way. He did not reply, but she saw him pull out a bill. She thought he was going to hand it to her, and she intended thanking him for lending her the money. But he did not hand it to her, and when a girl of fourteen or fifteen came running out of the store when the car stopped, he said to the girl: "Have you any veiling?" "Only white or dark blue." "Which do you want, Alice?" he asked in a matter-of- fact way, and she felt her heart give a queer little leap as if it meant to jump into her mouth, for the tone he em- ployed was the tone in which a man addresses his wife. "The blue will do," she replied, trying to speak smooth- ly. When the girl brought the veiling, she took it and THE GREATER JOY 55 wound it about her head, her cheeks. She saw him slip the change into his pocket without looking at it, and sud- denly a feeling of acute terror and bewilderment came over her, for she realized his mastery of her, and realized furthermore than she liked it. And then she remembered that he had paid for the veil, and that she had accepted it as if it were a gift and not a loan. This troubled her greatly, but try as she would, she could think of no way in which to tell him that she meant to reimburse him. What quality, she wondered, was it that reduced her to such imbecility, such limpness in his presence? The veil afforded her face some protection, but noli much, and the wind seemed a perfect gale. "I am sorry I brought you so far," he said once. "I hope you will not take cold. I should reproach myself utterly if you were to fall ill." "I sha'n't take cold," she said. "It's only my face that bothers me." "Try and put your head back of my shoulder," he said. He tilted forward a little. "Try." "No, no," she said. "Don't be foolish, Alice," he said. "There is no one here to see, and if there were, we are going along so quickly that no one could possibly recognize us." She held out for another minute, but the wind seemed to be splitting her skin, to be flaying her. With a quick little gesture, she placed her head where he had indicated, and was amazed at the warmth which she obtained from his coat. "How deliciously warm that fur is!" she said. "Do you like sealskin ?" "Yes, I love it. I think there is no fur more beauti- ful." She lifted her face. She could not take her eyes off 56 THE GREATER JOY the beautiful sealskin. The wind, blowing roughly against it, made little ripples in the fur, revealing the length and fineness and exquisite shading of the individ- ual hairs. "Alice, will you allow me to give you a sealskin coat?" "Certainly not." "Why not?" "Oh, for one thing," she replied banteringly, "it's the end of the season. Summer will be here in a month. May with us means the coolest muslins we can get." "Have you then no cold storage in New York ?" She ignored this. "Oh," she continued, "it will be old-fashioned next year." "Only negligibly so," he replied seriously. "Styles change very little in fur garments. I should dearly love to give you a sealskin coat to remember me by when I am gone." She gave him a frightened little look, which, although he was not looking at her, he perceived with joy. "Won't you, dear?" "No, no. It's quite out of the question, Doctor." "As an appreciation of the work you did for me?" "The hospital pays for my services. You are indebted to the hospital, not to me." "That's all very well. But you've made things very pleasant for me. Look here, you'd let me send you flowers, wouldn't you ?" "Why, yes, I suppose so." "And candy?" "Yes." "That's fortunate. I've just sent you a five-pound box of chocolates." THE GREATER JOY 57 "I love them. Thank you so much." "Now I could easily spend quite as much as a sealskin coat would come to for flowers and candy within a month, and according to your own admission, you would think it proper. Then why not the coat?" "Oh," she replied wearily, "the one is proper and the other isn't. That's all." "Don't you think that for a brainy woman your reason- ing in this instance is very poor?" "If I'm to argue with you," she said, "I shall have to first warm my poor brains against your shoulder. The wind is evaporating them." "Go ahead." But she merely held her muff before her face for a mo- ment, and then said triumphantly : "I'll tell you why convention allows a woman to accept flowers and sweetmeats from a man, and not clothes. Luxuries, flowers, etc., make life pleasant, but we can get along without them. After all, to accept luxuries from any one means a trifling obligation only. But for a woman to be indebted to a man for the necessities of life would be intolerable." "Unless she loved him," he said quietly, and turned and looked at her. "Also, I perceive I had an erroneous no- tion in my head, in classing sealskin coats as luxuries. You tell me they are necessities. Would a day laborer, earning nine dollars a week, I wonder, agree with you ?" She laughed. The wind was a legitimate excuse for not continuing the argument. The outskirts of the city were springing up on either side of them. The sky line across the river showed ocean-going vessels and ferry boats. To the other side, sky-scraping apartment houses reared themselves in towering isolation. 58 THE GREATER JOY "It will be long after two when we get back to the hos- pital," he said. "Couldn't I telephone, and make some excuse, so we can get something to eat together?" "I don't think I ought to lunch with you, Doctor." "Please do. Just a bite. You must be famished. I am. If you refuse, I shall think you are angry because of the sealskin coat." "Don't think that. I've forgotten about it. But I can- not lunch with you. For one thing, I am not dressed for a restaurant. I am in uniform." She was frightened after she had spoken, fearing he might renew his solicitations to have her come to his rooms, under the pretext of lunching there. But Ulrich von Dette was much too clever to avail himself of so direct an opening, or to put himself in the wrong by tac- itly admitting that he had not observed whether she was properly gowned or not. He said : "Your uniform is very charming. And it looks more like a simply made summer gown than a uniform because of the embroidered collar and cuffs. You must have bought the embroidery in France." "No. I did the embroidery myself." "Really ? Think of it ! I imagined you incapable of so purely feminine an occupation as embroidery." In her delight at his having thought of her so circum- stantially, she did not resent the injustice he had done her. She said : "Do I seem so very unfeminine to you?" "No, of course not," craftily he feigned hesitation. "A little too insistently brainy, that is all." She did not reply, but this imputation she resented, for she knew that she made no pretensions to braininess, and that it was he, and not she, who was continually harping upon it. But she had little time to nurse her injury, for THE GREATER JOY 59 he had stopped at a telephone station, and made her come into the store with him to superintend the message. "Whom shall I ask for, Doctor Etheridge or that bear of a head-nurse?" "Ask for Doctor Etheridge, and if he is not there, ask for Miss Bell. And I hope to goodness he is out, for the bear of a head-nurse, as you call her, will be much nicer about it than he." "What shall I say ? That I took you up home to show you some cultures, and my cousin kept you for lunch?" "No. Please tell the truth." "Your New England conscience is a very obstreperous instrument, I am afraid, if it balks at so trifling a fib as the one I proposed." "It isn't my New England conscience at all," she re- torted with spirit, "but my New York common-sense, which tells me there is no rhyme or reason in concocting a falsehood when the truth will serve as well." After she had spoken she was amazed at her lack of single-mindedness, and she became troubled. For the second time since she knew him, it seemed that some woman whom she did not know, who was a stranger to her, had invaded her soul and was sharing it with her, and was using her lips as a mouthpiece to enunciate things which she herself had no intention whatever of saying. He looked at her in surprise. "Do you know," he said, and he was sincere for once, "you are really an uncommonly clever woman." And while he held the receiver to his ear, waiting for the con- nection, he reflected that it would be a good deal more difficult to win her than he had expected. She was so damnably clear-headed. They lunched in the grill-room of the Knickerbocker, 60 THE GREATER JOY and as she left the selection to him, he chose terrapin ragout and brook trout fried in olive oil. To evince his hospitable intentions, he asked her, as a matter of form, whether she cared for a cocktail or wine, and ac- cepted her "neither" without comment. She liked him for the unobtrusive way in which he allowed the episode to slip away. She thought it showed his breeding, which was so conspicuous a factor in his make-up, to mag- nificent advantage. She looked at him, her admiration as plainly legible in her eyes as a visiting card is visible on a silver salver. She recollected herself, and removed her gaze. A woman wearing bizarre curls over her ears, and gro- tesquely attired, entered with two men, and everybody stared. "An actress ?" she murmured. "Undoubtedly she poses as such/' he said dryly. Then he leaned forward, and his whole manner, his eyes, his extended hands, with their palpable, trembling shadows of dark hair, lying clasped upon the table, seemed to say, "Let us not think of any one but ourselves." But his eyes, with the strange rivulets of light inun- dating them, troubled her exceedingly. She remembered how her face had lain against his shoulder in the auto- mobile, and she reflected that, side by side with him, she had not seemed so close to him as now, when they were sitting on opposite sides of the table, with his eyes pierc- ing hers. The waiter came and spoke to him a few times, and brought them bread and butter and helped them to water, and von Dette pointed out to her the mural decorations which he said were worth looking at. But it seemed to her as if there were a great deal of hustle and confusion THE GREATER JOY 61 about them, and as if it were impossible to enter into a real conversation. But she felt a strange, inexplicable sensation of phys- ical nearness to him, as if his arms were about her, or as if his lips had touched her cheek, and she wondered whether it was a feeling of this sort that made him ask to kiss her. She became a little dizzy. Besides this, her face was burning horribly from the wind, and she was afraid she looked frightful. "My face is crimson, I am sure." "Is it painful?" "Rather." He drew a small phial from his pocket and handed it to her. It contained a milky fluid. "It's a harmless face lotion," he explained. "Pour a little over the corner of your handkerchief, and moisten your face with it. No one will notice it." "What a remarkable thing for a man to carry !" Bowing formally, he answered: "I carry it solely for the use of my friends." His words aroused an unaccountable resentment in her, and she felt a sudden desire to snub him. But she said nothing. With smiling face and anger in her heart, she listened to his conversation. The food was brought. But although the terrapin was delicious, she did not enjoy it. The wind and the ride had made her very tired, and she still seemed to feel the rocking motion of the car, she still seemed to feel her face against his shoulder. Her color had died away at last, and she was so tired that she knew there must be deep circles under her eyes. "Are you very tired, Alice ?" "Desperately." 62 THE GREATER JOY "Can you lie down and take a nap when you get back to the hospital ?" "I can hardly do that. I think I will be in time for Doctor Etheridge's lecture. He is very particular to have no medical student absent without sufficient reason." Her voice sounded weary and fagged, and he noted with joy unutterable that she spoke of attending the lec- ture as of a duty to be performed, not of a pleasure to be enjoyed. "The poison is beginning to work," he thought. As they passed through the lobby of the hotel, she glanced at the dim recess of a curtained-off corner. "How inviting those chairs look," she remarked. "Let us sit here quietly for a few moments." She acquiesced immediately. When they were seated he said impulsively: "Alice, won't you come to my rooms, dear? Now, don't be angry, sweetheart, but " "Doctor von Dette," she interrupted him, "it is bad enough to have you call me by my first name, but I positively forbid you to call me sweetheart." "I will call you sweetheart, nevertheless. Two days ago you forbade me to call you Alice. To-day you allow it. A week hence you will be quite willing to have me say 'sweetheart/ Yes, you will. My calling you 'sweet- heart' does not make you my sweetheart, does it? Al- though I wish it did," he added under his breath. She sighed wearily. The incessant vigilance of this man was beginning to weary her inutterably. It brought to her mind a short story of Jack London's she had read, in which a wolf and a man, both dying of starvation, dragged themselves over miles and miles of desolate country, both in the hope that the other would relax his THE GREATER JOY 63 vigilance and give himself a chance to kill, and after kill- ing, to eat, and by eating to restore his own depleted energies. To her excited imagination it suddenly seemed that this man at her side, so well-groomed, so attentive, so high-bred, so charming, so witty, was nevertheless a beast of prey, waiting only to see her stumble and hesi- tate, to relax her attention, so that he, too, might strike — after his fashion. The only wonder was that she did not hate him, and yet, strange to say, she did not. But she decided suddenly that she would never accept the least attention from him again. He seemed to read her thoughts, for he said: "Alice, don't be angry with me ; you look so wretchedly fagged, and I reproach myself so bitterly for taking you on that cold drive. Come to my rooms. You can lie down quietly; nothing and nobody will disturb you. I have a large, broad leather couch, as comfortable as the softest bed, and I will cover you with a lovely, hand- knitted Afghan of Angora wool, and then I will draw the shades, and then, if you will permit it, I will kiss your hand, and if you will not permit that, I will kiss your sleeve, your slipper, and then you will sleep, and when you awake, you will have a cup of tea before I drive you home. Yes ?" "No, no," she said almost roughly. She felt as if she were protecting herself against a physical assault. The softness, the ingratiating quality of his voice, was almost more than her tortured nerves could bear. And then the horrible sensation of physical nearness to him which had not left her for a moment since they had sat down at table together. "No, no," she repeated more feebly, as he continued to gaze at her. 64 THE GREATER JOY He persisted. "Come, Alice, come and pay your first call to-day — now." "No— Ulrich." She added his name, using it for the first time, in full cognizance of what she was doing. But it seemed to have been forced from her. She had not wanted to say "Ulrich/' but she had said it. "Alice, sweetheart " "Please, please, don't ask me again." Her eyes filled with tears, which did not fall, but hung betwixt cheek and eyelid, like dewdrops, he thought, between blades of grass, where the growth is heavy. Something like pity stirred in him. He saw her ter- ror, her vain, pitiful striving to control herself. He knew that it rested with him solely whether she would lie in his arms within the hour or not. Was pity then stronger than passion? He had never found it to be so before. Yet it was beyond his power to take advantage of her at this moment. She would hate him for it. Per- haps, strange though it seemed, he would hate himself. She seemed such a young, helpless, babyish thing to take her thus to his rooms. To check his own nervousness, he arose and looked at the clock. It was almost four. If she came home with him, it would be seven at least before she could get back to the hospital, and then her agitation and the unusual hour would probably betray her. So it was settled for him, and to his surprise, he found that this consideration, which made it impossible for him to take her to his rooms, relieved his mind enormously. He must prepare her a while longer. He could not bear the thought that she should learn to hate him. It was the first time that any thought of this kind had de- THE GREATER JOY 65 terred him from rushing headlong to his pleasure. Was it then possible that he was actually falling in love with this girl? Was his love for her something sweeter, holier than he had ever experienced before? Holier ? Could love between man and woman ever be holy or sacred? He doubted it. To his mind, love be- tween the sexes was purely earthy and of the earth. And yet — there sat the girl whom he desired as fully, if not more poignantly, than he had ever desired a woman, and he was not pressing to the uttermost the advantage he had won. It was very puzzling. He turned to look at the object that had brought about this queer state of mind. He felt a sudden wish to re- gard her impartially, with curiosity and intelligence un- hampered by the emotions. She sat where she had sat before, her cheek resting lightly upon one small gloved hand. Her tears had fallen at last ; they were thick and heavy like a child's, and midway down her cheek their course had been checked. "Gad," he muttered. "She is beautiful!" His right hand sought his throat, fumbled at his collar, as if to give him air, compromised finally upon caressing his chin, while his elbow rested in the palm of his other hand. "She might serve as a model for an angel weeping," he thought. Other women, indulging immoderately in tears, became repulsive or ludicrous, but she, weeping modestly, unobtrusively, was adorable and perfect as always. Undoubtedly it would be an act of vandalism to follow up his advantage now. Who would tear open a rose-bud forcefully, in order to prematurely produce a rose? A ruined bud, a blighted flower, would be the upshot. The wise man, the poet, would be content to wait, saying, "In a little while the sun and the rain and the wind will coax 66 THE GREATER JOY the bud to open by itself, and by itself to reveal its full splendor as a mature rose." Meanwhile, how sweet was the bud ! How now to relieve the situation? He came and sat down opposite to her. "Alice," he said soothingly, "you may not know it, but a man's shoulder is admirably adapted for a good cry. May I offer you mine?" "I've not been crying," she said, with a little sniffle. "No?" He carefully dried her face with his handker- chief. She offered no protest. "What are these?" he asked, "if not tears?" "My eyes may have watered a bit, from the wind," she answered. "I see," he retorted. "Do you want to go home, dear —to the hospital ?" She arose, without a word, and as they walked through the lobby together, she slipped her hand through his arm. Surprised and pleased, he looked down at her. "It's only because of the soft sealskin," she said roguishly. "Happy sealskin," he sighed comically. Together they passed out into the street. That evening, as Ulrich sat smoking his cigarettes be- fore retiring, he found to his relief that, away from the spell of her personality, his cynicism had returned to him in large measure. "To-morrow," he promised himself, "I shall employ more flesh-tints. To-morrow I shall tighten the thumb- screws." But he did not relish the thought of applying the thumbscrews. His cynicism was not as firm as he would have liked it to be. CHAPTER IV When Ulrich entered the library the next morning, he enveloped Alice in a look that no woman could misunder- stand. Yet he greeted her with politeness, and evinced his desire to get to work at once. There was an aloof- ness, a detachedness about him that seemed to signify utter indifference, and but for the glints of light that came into his eyes whenever they alighted upon her, he in no way showed the faintest interest in her. She had braced herself, before coming to the library, against any allurements and blandishments with which he might renew his attempts. She had spent a miserable night of self-loathing and abasement, following one of those revulsions of feeling from which those in love are never exempt. She had made a dozen laudable resolu- tions, and because she had expected to find opposition, immediate and strong, levelled against her determination, his coldness and reserve and apparent indifference were a worse shock to her nerves than would have been the most impassioned wooing. When they had finished, he began, in the tone of an utter stranger, complimenting her upon her ability, her cleverness. And he addressed her respectfully as "Miss Vaughn." She thanked him coldly. She had desired him to abstain from use of her Christian name, but now that he complied with her wish, she was mortified beyond measure. His tribute to her intellect also annoyed and angered her unaccountably. His whole manner filled her with resentment. 67 68 THE GREATER JOY "But in spite of your braininess," he continued, speak- ing in the languid, lazy tone which was habitual with him, excepting when he spoke with brother-savants or with her, "you should abandon nursing. You are too good looking to come into continual contact with sick- ness and death." She remembered a similar remark made by the Baron- ess. "No one is too good looking to alleviate suffering," she replied, falling in with the distant manner which he employed. "Very prettily answered, and to be expected, since you are an Anglo-Saxon. But I am a Continental, and the continental code says that pretty women shall enjoy — and be enjoyed." Alice said nothing. The blood was beating violently in her temples. Oh, she should have hated him, hated him, as she should have hated him before, but she could muster no hatred to hurl against him. He spoke again. "Why," he asked, "did you think that I meant that? Beautiful women are enjoyed in many ways besides the original brutal one. Their beauty is an embellishment upon a bleak world. A truly beautiful woman is -a greater masterpiece than the finest achievement in paint- ing or music or literature. And, like a masterpiece of art, she stimulates the most extravagant enthusiasm in the connoisseur. A homely woman has an excuse for cul- tivating her brain, in desiring to attain mental distinc- tion. She cannot conquer men, so she will compete with them. Very good. But a beautiful woman lacks the one valid excuse. Physical vanity is the normal emo- tion of women, mental vanity of men, and the woman who arrogates mental vanity to herself is as great a mon- THE GREATER JOY 69 strosity as a man who cultivates physical vanity is an ab- surdity. "That," he went on, "is the eternal difference, insur- mountable and abiding", between the sexes. The one should excel in beauty, the other in strength, for in these latter days, brains and strength are, if not synonymous terms, at least levers of synonymous possibilities. There- fore, the wisest man in the world can be fascinated by the most stupid of women, so long as she is lovely to look at, and conversely, the most beautiful woman can be sub- jugated by the most repulsive of men, so he be endowed with exceptional strength or exceptional cleverness." He spoke in his usual languid way, his eyes sending forth their strange flashes of flame which seemed to stab her flesh, his voice exuding fine tendrils of emotion, which, like tangible filaments, enmeshed and caressed and wrapped themselves about her senses. He leaned across the table, and laid his hand beside hers, without touching it. She experienced a sensation of suffocation. She thought of flight, but a feeling of weakness, which she could not overcome, made flight impossible. "Don't be afraid," he said tenderly. He spoke in low, even tones, but there was a curious tremolo in his voice that she had never noted before, and to which every nerve in her body responded. "I shall not kiss you. I shall not even touch you, for if I did, it would be too much or not enough." Suddenly his voice broke, became thick and hoarse. They were aliens no longer. Their footing of the day before was more than restored. "I love you, Alice," he cried passionately, "I have only known you a week. Can you, who are innocent of all knowledge, who never tasted the joys of love, realize 70 THE GREATER JOY what violence I have been doing myself all week — yes- terday, to-day — in sitting beside you, stupidly inactive, instead of crushing you in my arms, and making you re- spond ?" "I wouldn't respond," she flung out desperately, but she was trembling from head to foot. He laughed. "Do not dare me," he said. "Do not speak again. I am a different man to-day than you have yet seen. Your voice intoxicates me, your eyes make me delirious, and your hair is like the strands of a spider's web — fine as silk, apparently as easily broken, yet in truth a net of incredible strength, of insidious possibili- ties — capable of strangling a man, of God knows what else." "You are mad!" "Who wouldn't be?" he retorted with spirit. His voice lost its harshness, became liquid and caressing. It seemed to the girl that he must be kissing the words be- fore emitting them, they were so soft, so smooth, so se- ductive. He took her hand. "Alice, you are the love- liest woman I have ever seen, and I love you, I want you, I desire you." She put up her hand as if to wave away the words that sounded to her like a magician's invocation. Quick as lightning, he shot both of his hands over to her. She thought that he would at last take her in his arms and kiss her. The thought terrified and yet delighted her. She did not move. He seemed to paralyze alike her voli- tion and her muscles. But when his hands were within half an inch of her, he drew them back quickly. "I have promised," he said, "not to touch you." He spoke as a man who makes a supreme effort, and there had entered into his voice, which had regained it's liquid clearness, an element akin to the flame in his eye. THE GREATER JOY 71 "You said I was a dangerous man the other day," he said. "It is true — to-day I am very dangerous." Alice spent a miserable afternoon. He had succeeded in doing what he wanted to do. He had completely checkmated her. The display of inordinate passion he had made flattered her vanity, and the apparent self-con- trol he had exercised in banishing his passion gave her a high notion of the regard he entertained for her virtue. Both were as he had intended. Nevertheless, she was more alarmed than she had been at any time since their acquaintance began. "Is it possible," she thought, "that I do not trust my- self?" The thought occurred to her of feigning indisposition the next day, so as to avoid him, but when morning came^ after a troubled night, she concluded that to do so would be to declare herself vanquished. Her pride rebelled. She would meet him, and show she was perfectly self- possessed. She would look at his well-manicured fin- gers, and his hand with its penumbra of black hair, and then she would hate him. His hands were beautiful, but she did not like them. Yes, she would hate him. She would always remember to look at his hands when she felt that love was getting the better of her. Pale, weary, trembling with the strange, new sensa- tion, she presented herself in the library at the accus- tomed hour. Von Dette was there alone. She had hoped, and again she had feared, that some one else might be there. She was surprised that she felt a sensation of relief on finding only him. Was it possible that she longed for a continuation of the adventure? He did not speak as she entered, but raised his eyes from the book he was reading, and it seemed to her that 72 THE GREATER JOY they gleamed phosphorescently. Some of his icy reserve was gone. The volcano was nearer the surface, still in leash, it is true, but very apparent. He did not reply to her "good morning," but motioned to her to take a chair. To her surprise she became more tranquil on seeing his emotion. His agitation had dispelled her own. They worked in silence for an hour. Suddenly, as she leaned forward to arrange some papers, she caught sight of his waxen, ridiculously white fingers, the pulpy white hand with its covering of black hair. She had forgotten her intention not to lose sight of his hands, that she might loathe him. But when suddenly confronted by them, she experienced none of the hostility which she had made herself believe they would induce in her. Instead, a torrential wave of emotion swept over her with incon- ceivable swiftness. She hated him at that moment, but it was not the kind of hatred she had wished to feel. Once, through a defective fountain pen, he stained his fingers with ink. He excused himself, and washed his hands in the wash basin in a corner of the room. When he returned, he was still rubbing his hands, one with the other. He stood before her, regarding her fixedly, whether deliberately or abstractedly, she could not say, and all the while he rubbed his hands together vigor- ously, to keep them from chapping. There was a pecu- liar, self-satisfied smile on his lips, in which there lurked something of cruelty or triumph, or both. A nameless terror came racing over her. She looked away from him, and attempted to fix her attention on a book, but though she sought to keep her eyes away from his cynical smile, they were drawn back in some strange way, as if some unseen hand were lifting her head, and tilting it THE GREATER JOY 73 back, and drawing the very vision out of her eyes in a direction contrary to that in which she chose to look. He stood there in the same attitude as before, still rub- bing his pink, baby-soft palms together, regarding her with his inscrutable smile, in which the look of sensual triumph had deepened, to which there was added another quality, as of utter pitilessness, which had not been there before. In her own eyes was an appealing look, as if begging for mercy. She wondered obscurely whether he had any notion of the agony he was inflicting. It seemed to her that he could not know. Suddenly it appeared to her that this wave of emotion which was undulating through her was a monstrous thing. She did not know that every gesture, every glance, every word, every movement, the very intonation and cadence in his voice, was premeditated, and as fully con- trolled and directed as the words he spoke. She did not know that he was playing upon her emotionalism as a musician plays upon an instrument whose every chord he knows, that he was manipulating her senses with the terrible, unerring certainty of a man whose experience has been with dozens, with scores, perhaps with hundreds, of women, and who, because of that experience which had been always purely of the senses and therefore un- blinded by affection, or even of sympathy, was able to appraise women with the unfailing insight evinced by a horse-dealer in the purchase of a horse, by an art-lover in the acquisition of a new painting. Ulrich von Dette was a connoisseur of women; he not only knew how to appraise them, he knew how to break them of their oppo- sition to his will, of their security, almost of their indi- viduality, and all that with the same good-natured ease, the indifferent nonchalance with which a sportsman 74 THE GREATER JOY breaks a high-spirited horse, giving the line only to more effectively assert his own mastery in the end. Later on, as she was turning a leaf, her hand remain- ing in the air between him and herself for a moment, he, without warning, caught it in his own, crushing it to his lips, kissing passionately the tips of her fingers. "You had promised not to," she said gently. She was aware that her voice also held a new note. "When did I make so foolish a promise?" he de- manded. "Yesterday." She withdrew her fingers from his grasp. They were bruised and sore from the energy of his lips. "Yesterday?" He wrinkled his brow as if in futile recollection. "Yesterday is a century ago, for a night interposed between yesterday and to-day, a night — with- out you." "Hush !" She was amazed that she did not resent this insult. But her voice was beyond her control. It was soft as the cooing of a mating bird. "My darling," he went on with sudden tenderness and very gently, "my darling, to-morrow is Sunday, and you are free. Let us go into the woods together in the morning. We'll have dinner there, just you and I, and then — we'll roam through the woods again." "No, no!" she cried. "Sweetheart," he said caressingly, "don't think evil of me. There is none in my mind. Surely there is no harm in our going to the woods together, where we can pick violets and daffodils. I will show you a beautiful mansion — such a mansion and such a park !" "I will not go with you," she answered deter- minedly. "Do you already love me so much?" he laughed. THE GREATER JOY 75 She became angry, but he laughed again, and bending over, kissed her between the eyes. "Dearest," he said, "what else can I say? What else can be the reason of your refusal? Either you refuse because you love me and fear me; or you love me so much that an innocent day with me would bring you no joy." He saw by her eyes that she was perplexed, and be- fore she could resist him, he had kissed her again and again on the brow, on the eyes, imparting such delicacy, such tenderness, such reverence almost to his blandish- ments that Alice became more and more demoralized. "Forgive me, love," he went on feverishly. "You did not understand what I meant. Forgive me, love. I was a brute to say it. You will come with me to-morrow, won't you?" "I will not go," she repeated lamely, feeling herself weaken under his persistence. "Yes, you will," he said softly. "I will be here for you at ten o'clock. We will spend an ideal day. It shall mark the betrothal of our souls, and upon it shall fall no evil." Again she murmured her protests, but he only put his arm about her chair, and leaned closer to her, so closely that the breath of his lips stirred on hers. "Dearest," he asked, "why not?" She strove to speak with vehemence : "You have not treated me in the right way, not " "Like a gentleman ?" he queried gently. She said nothing, but the tears of mortification stood in her eyes. He took her by the shoulders and gazed down at her, an amused smile playing about his lips. "Alice," he said gravely, in the voice of a grown-up 76 THE GREATER JOY imparting to a child a truth which he doubts will be com- prehended, "the man who treats the woman he loves like a gentleman in the presence of others is a gentleman, in- deed ; but the man who treats the woman he loves like a gentleman when he is alone with her, is a fool." She looked up into his eyes, trying vaguely to smile at the witticism. She did not understand why she should be so tearful. But she felt, at the moment, that if she could have buried her head against his shoulder, and weep and weep, with her arms wound about his neck, and his mouth on the nape of her neck, it would have been the height of felicity. Still the tears flowed. "Dewdrops in violets," he said. "Raindrops on forget- me-nots. Teardrops in a woman's eyes." Then he bent over, and kissed first the right and then the left eye. "I have tasted the salt of your tears," he said in a voice whose cadence was like the consecration of a priest, "I have tasted the bitterness of your heart. You have allowed me to do so. Now, also, you must allow that I show you the way to the kingdom of earth in which, to those who dwell therein, there is neither misery nor anger nor tears. Think no evil, my love, for I would not spoil the betrothal of our souls by as much as an im- pure thought. Think no evil, my love, for I can know no evil when you are near me." The slow, voluptuous rhythm of his voice seemed to communicate itself to her blood; a strange vibration shook her entire body. She wondered why he did not kiss her; then she realized with the consciousness of a wrong-doer that she longed for his kisses. Suddenly he kissed her. Bending back her head, he kissed her lingeringly once, only once upon the lips. But THE GREATER JOY 77 to her his kiss seemed to make of life a dazzling vision of surpassing beauty. Thus he swept her at his pleasure from the turgid depths of desire to the lyric heights of poetic passion — she all unconscious that she was the lute and he the player, that he was attuning her, searching her, adapting her to his touch even as the violinist tunes his instrument and adapts it to himself before using it. CHAPTER V Alice slept placidly all through that night. Ulrich had lulled and stilled her terror of him, and with his powerful rhetoric had placed a quietus upon her half-awakened, half-dormant passion. She had again abandoned herself to the delicious de- lusion that the emotions he had stimulated in her at times were fancied and not real, that she was merely playing a little with love, and that she did not desire in the least to actually enter the "kingdom of earth" which he had depicted so glowingly. There was no real danger for her, she felt confident, and she was quite sure now that it was readily within the province of her will to expel all thoughts of him from her mind and heart, should the phantom of real, actual danger arise. So it happened that there was neither embarrassment, nor timidity, nor fear in her manner or in her heart, as she came down the hospital steps that Sunday morning to meet him, where he stood waiting for her with the automobile. Until then von Dette had seen her only in her nurse's uniform, and he had not supposed that any other garb could heighten her loveliness in his eyes, accustomed as he was to perceive the intrinsic value of a woman at the first glance. But the girl's beauty was such, as she stood before him, her perfectly moulded figure sheathed in pale gray voile that, cynical libertine though he was, a sharp ejaculation of surprise escaped his lips. She 78 THE GREATER JOY 79 might, as she stood there, have served for a painter en- gaged in presenting those rare, luscious days when the radiance of Spring almost imperceptibly deepens and merges in the glory of Summer. All the sweetness and sparkling freshness of early youth was upon her, all the callowness, the gaucherie of too-early youth was gone; her whole being was instinct with and prophetic of that maturity of beauty when knowledge and experience would have consummated the handiwork of Nature. As he gazed upon her, a terrible thrill of desire over- came him, and to suppress it, he began a long discussion with the chauffeur concerning a fancied weakness of the machine, about the roads, about anything. When he came back to her, he was again the deft man of the world, self-contained, self-controlled, willing to mortify the flesh at any cost for days to come for the sake of the ultimate intoxication that waited for him, when he had finally run down his game. He was afraid to frighten away his prey by too clearly betraying the end in view, by any ill-advised move that might arouse her suspicion, and put her on her guard. "Well," he said, as the automobile rolled down the street, "the betrothal of our souls could not have chanced upon a lovelier day. Will you trust me ? Or must I tell you where we are going?" "I will trust you," she said demurely, playfully, "since I have your assurance that upon this day can fall neither evil things nor evil thoughts." He smiled, coldly, so it seemed to her. In truth, her beauty was intoxicating him, and he dared show no warmth lest the torch of cordiality burst prematurely into the furnace-like blaze of passion. Finally he spoke, ask- ing permission to place a warm wrap about her shoulders, and in doing so, through the jerking of the machine, his 80 THE GREATER JOY fingers touched the nape of her neck, where the white flesh showed through the loosely woven network of the lace. "Dearest," he murmured passionately, feeling that he must let that one word serve as an outlet for his feelings. "Dearest!" Alice placed her fingers upon her mouth with the pret- tiest gesture imaginable. "Hush !" she said, "our souls are listening." "You are adorable," he murmured. The terrible sen- suality that had possessed him for days fell away from him. It seemed to him that the daintiness, the charm of her rebuke had banished it. He felt that there was a slight reversal of their rela- tions, a modification, certainly. Until now he had held the whip hand. He had forced her into falling madly in love with him, while he himself was held well in check. To-day he felt less sure of her, and less sure also of him- self. It was quite possible that his ardor exceeded hers, that he already cared more for her than she did for him. But she was very lovely, and he was willing to pay a higher price than usual in the way of preliminary court- ing, preliminary suffering. He felt distinctly grateful to her for having liberated him from the sting of his pain. He was a materialist, a man of pleasure, no doubt, but he was also a man of poetic moods, of finer perceptions, of exaggerated artistic instincts. There was no coarseness, no vulgarity in him. It had been one of his unexpressed griefs that had at times disgusted him with himself and increased the cyni- cism with which he regarded all human nature, that among all the women who had attracted him, with whom he had had liaisons or desired to have them, there had not been one good, one superior woman — not one who had THE GREATER JOY 81 held him by any other means than the transitory pleasure she afforded. Ulrich was as merciless in his criticism of himself as in his analysis of others ; he had, at the outset of his amor- ous experiences, ascribed this circumstance to the limita- tions of each successive woman, and with the insolent judgment of early youth had decided that the woman whom he could really love, who would appeal to his heart and his mind and his senses as well, was an im- possible myth. Good women seemed to him, in these early days, either stupid or insipid. The women of the great world, with whom his rank brought him into abun- dant contact, seemed ambitious, shallow, vain, insincere, on the same spiritual level almost, as far as self-seeking went, as his demi-mondaines, with the unappreciable dif- ference that whereas he paid the latter in francs or marks, the former, for favors granted, exacted payment in furth- erance of social position, or some similar emolument which it was in his power to procure. Because of his high rank, his favors stood for much in certain circles. The really virtuous woman, matron and maid alike, had impressed him as intolerably deficient in temperament, and a woman who was deficient in temperament could never, he knew, accelerate the pulsing of his blood by the fraction of a second. There had been witty women, women with whom con- versation and social intercourse had been a delight, but there had always been some trait, mental or physical, that had made it impossible for them to inspire in him the grande passion. He was excessively fastidious. A strait-laced notion, an unbecoming hat, a mole, an imperfectly rounded arm, a mere bagatelle, was sufficient to repel him. He had pursued many a woman who had at first appealed strongly 83 THE GREATER JOY to him, and had abruptly abandoned the chase because of some suddenly conceived disgust. This had earned for him the name of a flirt, a breaker of hearts, and as none of the fair ones whom he had pursued and then abandoned ever ascribed his sudden defection to lack of attractiveness on her own part, but to the lashings of a suddenly awakened conscience on his, he passed as a man of fair morality. As he grew older, and demi-mondaine succeeded demi- mondaine, each being thrown aside in turn as he wearied of her attractions, he became skeptical as to his former theory. Perhaps the woman whom a man might really love was after all no myth. He, who was so readily dis- gusted with any superficial blemish in virtuous women, overlooked similar, perhaps greater, blemishes with the greatest unconcern in a demi-mondaine. Was it then some inherent leprosy of his own mind that made it im- possible for him to be fascinated by any woman whose manner was not suggestive, whose personality was not steeped in that subtle aroma of the woman of easy vir- tue ? It made him furious to think this of himself. He began, at this time, to cultivate a closer acquaintance with his cousin Sylvia, in the hopes of forcing himself to love her. For many reasons a marriage with Sylvia would have been desirable, but though he sought sedu- lously to produce the psychologial feeling in himself that would warrant his asking her to marry him, he did not succeed. Only he, with his inveterate cynicism, termed it "physiological feeling." But then, Sylvia was a brunette. He was very fond of Sylvia, in a brotherly sort of way, but that was all. And loose as was the moral code of Ulrich von Dette, he had his code. He would not marry a woman he did not love. THE GREATER JOY 83 After that he despaired of finding a woman who would be all that he desired ! All that he desired! He formulated a brief of what a woman should be. She should be not only completely adapted to her lover's needs, but should possess an unfailing genius to alter- nately arouse and quench his desire, to adapt herself to whatever he desired his mood to be at the moment. And she must also be able to cater to other, non-sensual moods. Manlike, not finding his ideal, he was content with an approximate substitute. Often he thought of Taine's witty dictum, "At eighteen we desire a madonna and are satisfied with a servant-girl." Now, sitting beside Alice, he wondered vaguely what this affair would drift into. He had his first premonition that Sunday morning that the girl at his side might be the woman, not merely a woman. He had a curious presentiment that now, when he had all but despaired of meeting with the great ad- venture, when he had begun to view its very possibility with contemptuous cynicism, the hour might be at hand in which his youthful dream was to come true. Certainly this girl was different, very, very different, from any woman he had met. She was young, and she was passionate, that he could see ; but she had brains, that also he knew to a certainty, and she could converse clev- erly, and now she was unfolding still another side, a play- ful, feminine side, a sweetly spiritual side that endeared her to him a hundred fold. Then, her coloring was an unadulterated joy to him. He was a little tired of the flaxen-haired beauties of his native land. He remembered the time in his student days when he had gone wild over every golden-haired 84 THE GREATER JOY peasant girl, for blondeness moved him intensely, cre- ating in him not only a sensual sensation, but an extraor- dinary tenderness. He remembered among the women of his past, one in particular who had had nothing what- ever to recommend her excepting her hair and her com- plexion. Her features had been coarse, her contours un- lovely, her voice shrill and unpleasant, but she had held him effectually for a while by the spell cast upon him by her hair, which was so wonderfully fine and heavy that she was forced to wear it down her back, like a little girl. But he had tired of her very soon. It had barely been an amour, the merest infatuation, more evanescent and ephemeral even than the others. And he had wan- dered on to others. But always and always it had been the blonde woman who attracted and held him, appealing first to his tenderness and his esthetic taste, and who, then, in some subtle way, became altogether desirable to him. But there had been so many with the same color of hair, for though the shades varied from faintest baby blonde to darkly burnished gold, there had been no dif- ference in the quality, the timbre of the color, just as a dozen shades or so of embroidery floss are employed in the working of one single flower, and though these dif- ferent shades differ and vary, running from the very light ones to the intensely dark shades, yet their differ- ence is due only to the difference in the amount of light they diffuse, and is in no way fundamental or sugges- tive of any than the merest superficial difference. He had sometimes thought that a dark woman would make a welcome change, just as a man, though port be his favorite wine, will sometimes drink a sauterne or a sherry, even if he does not care particularly for these vintages, for the mere sake of contrast thereby afforded his palate, so that port, on being tasted again will be all THE GREATER JOY 85 the more gratifying. But he had failed to interest him- self in Sylvia, and after that episode he sought again purposely and deliberately to become interested in some dark-eyed, dark-haired nymph. But strive as he would, as in Sylvia's case, he could not bring himself to the verge of even the most casual infatuation for a dark woman. The most insinuating glances, received and given, the most intimate conversations, the closest prox- imity allowed by the conventions of the drawing- and ballroom and sometimes the boudoir, had failed to fire his blood or engage his emotions. Dark women re- mained in his estimation what they had been before — good for decorative purposes only. So, a little weary of the procession of blondes, a trifle bored by their mental as well as personal sameness, he wandered on. Que voulez-vows? What was a man to do? The love of a woman was indispensable to him. And thus with a delight that was tremendous and in- finitesimal at the same time, tremendous because deep, infinitesimal since it noted nuances so fine that they might have escaped a less keen observer, he perceived the quality in Alice's coloring that differentiated her from other blondes. He was so sure now — this morning — that this visible difference was merely a tangible proof of a difference that was internal as well, a difference which she had most auspiciously begun to manifest, and that this woman would not only be the most beautiful he had ever won, but the most interesting, and in every way the most satisfactory. She was a decisive blonde, it is true, but upon her hair was not a shimmer of gold, rather the sheen of silver. When the sun shone upon her hair, its radiance dazzled, but did not warm. It was brilliantly cool, but her hair seemed warm when out of the sunlight. It then lost its 86 THE GREATER JOY silvery effulgence, and appeared to be the shade of very lightly smoked meerschaum, very exquisite, very dis- tinctive, with a suggestion of softness that was at once chaste and warm. He thought he would never tire of looking at her hair. If she consented to accept him as a lover, and he had no doubt that she would, he was deter- mined to make her cut off her hair the moment it showed the first white threads. He would force her to save her combings — she had probably never thought of it — and there would then be enough of her own beautiful hair to make her a fine wig, and he would see her always wear- ing her pale crown of hair, and would not endure the ordeal of seeing it shed its glory of turning piebald and streaky, a change to which he was particularly sensitive. It pleased him to think he had had this thought. He had never before thought ahead of the possible appear- ance of any woman many years hence. They had been creatures of a day, or of an hour, and so long as they suf- ficed to while away that day or hour, he had asked noth- ing more of them. And it came to him as an extraordi- nary occurrence that he should thus subconsciously have considered the possibility of prolonging this intrigue in- terminably, that he should consider such a prolongation desirable. That Alice had been capable of creating in him this unique emotion was an experience sufficiently remarkable in itself to be deemed prophetic of the fortui- tousness of the intrigue he was embarking upon. Would he perhaps desire to marry her? Ulrich was intimately acquainted with the worst side of his charac- ter. He gloried in it ; it, was a matter of vanity with him ; and now the perception came to him with startling precision that there was a convex side to the concave side of his code which had determined him to marry no THE GREATER JOY 87 woman he could not whole-heartedly love, and that con- vex side of the code possibly would demand of him that, having found the one woman, he should marry her, irre- spective of station. Would he, then, be faithful to her? That would be a new experience also, and he hoped she might bring the miracle to pass. To be faithful to one woman for months, for years, perhaps ! He had always believed it to be an impossibility for a man of any spirit. He knew men who went home every night to their wives and their home supper in contentment, even with a certain expec- tation of pleasure. This had seemed very ridiculous to Ulrich. He craved variety in food, in cooking, in books, in women. No matter how fond a man is of roast beef or a leg of mutton, there surely comes a time when he yearns for Leberpasteten and Gaensebrust. No matter how devoted a man is to the substantial fare of Pliny or Epictetus, there are times when he craves the volatile essence of life embodied in Voltaire's writings, or the titillating, ticklish charm of a Balzac or a Boccaccio. It showed a remarkable lack of enterprise, an incomprehen- sible dulness for a man to remain true to one woman only, and argued a deficiency in amorous adventuresome- ness which caused Ulrich to feel a compassion for such a man not unlike the compassion he lavished upon the blind, the halt, the physically or mentally incapable. What, then, would be the outcome of this affair ? He asked the question of himself the second time. They were flying along the avenue, and Alice, her head slightly inclined to meet the wind, sat in silence. He wondered how long she would have the temerity to con- tinue silent, and to do it so unconsciously. She seemed this morning to him like a different woman, not as young, not as inexperienced, more of the woman of the world, 88 THE GREATER JOY with all her pristine sweetness intact, however, and as evident as a bunch of violets in a warm room. Suddenly she turned and faced him. Would she in- dulge in some commonplace remark after that adorable rebuke she had administered to him? "Does spiritual betrothal impose silence upon the con- tracting parties?" she asked coyly. He smiled down into her eyes. "Forgive me," he said. "I have been stupid. Alice, you have rendered me speechless. No, I am not saying something that I should not say; you have made me stupid and dull because you are in a mood in which I have never seen you, which I did not suspect you capable of, my little wise owl." Alice laughed and then pulled a long face. "I am so sorry you are disappointed in me," she said. "Disappointed?" He was in doubt whether she was serious or mischievous. "Disappointed, yes, for since you liked me in the mood you knew, and did not suspect this one " He clasped her hand. "Dearest," he said, "if you look at me like that again, I shall kiss you right here on the avenue before all those people as spectators." "I would not mind all those strangers a bit as specta- tors." "What?" He was infinitely entertained by her audacity. "But I would mind the invisible spectators. Must I remind you of them again ? The bride and bridegroom." He bent down and kissed her hand, where it lay in her lap. "I could not help it, dearest," he explained. "You are bewitching, adorable." THE GREATER JOY "I should be no less, since I enter Paradise to-day- "Paradise ?" He was honestly bewildered. "You have not told me, but the Kingdom of Earth — I supposed it was Paradise where you were taking me to ?" She smiled up into his face, and there was such sweet- ness, such humility in her voice that it completely neu- tralized the playfulness of her manner. A pain moved in his throat of which he had believed himself incapable. He could not speak for the moment, but pressed her hand. "If she continues like this all day," he thought, "I shall worship her by evening as I have never worshipped any woman before. , ' Finally, at the end of a twenty-mile run, when crossing the river, they came upon a large park, inclosed with a high wall of gray stone, above which the branches of the trees made sweet music in the wind. At the entrance were iron gates, across which was hung a placard so enormous that it completely hid from view the strip of park which would otherwise have been visible between the iron grill- work. The placard read, "Closed for Re- pairs. Open next Sunday." Alice gave an exclamation of disappointment, but Ul- rich laughed. "That was my inspiration, that board," he said, "so that we may have the grounds to ourselves." Alight- ing, he unlocked the padlock which held the gates to- gether. The grounds into which they passed were beautiful in- deed. Well-kept as was the lawn, there was an air of desolation and wild grandeur about the place that struck fire to Alice's imagination. To her it seemed like en* chanted ground, and in fancy she harked back to those early days of her girlhood when the world was still 90 THE GREATER JOY swathed in the rose-hue of romantic glamour, before she had known about the mystery of life. Now she was standing upon the threshold of life, and its mystery! "See those chestnuts," said Ulrich, pointing with his cane to the cone-shaped, starry white blossoms standing on their branches like huge mignonettes. "They are the bouquets for the bridesmaids. They have been dipped in snow, that is why they are white as virginity; they have been kissed by love, therefore are their lips red as desire.' , Further on they sat down upon the greensward, where the grass was lush and uncut, and buried their hands in the long, sweet-smelling blades, drawing it luxuriously through their fingers, crushing it, inhaling its fragrance in long, sensuous sniffs. Alice plaited three blades of grass, while Ulrich watched her with interest. "What are you doing?" he asked. "You shall see." And she continued to deftly lace and interlace the long, strong blades. Presently she broke them, and knotting the two ends together ingeniously, she held out to him a ring. "This is your betrothal ring," she said. The soft dewiness of her eyes as she looked at him in' saying this moved him to sudden tenderness. It seemed to him that he was being purified by some painless flame, that he was discovering a sweetness in life which he had hitherto not suspected. He took the ring and slipped it upon his finger. "Now you must make one for yourself." "No, no; to-day the order of things is reversed. To- day I wear no ring, but you must wear one as a symbol of your captivity." WE WILL HAVE THE GROUNDS TO OURSELVES." Page 90 THE GREATER JOY 91 "Yes," he murmured, remembering the cool touch of her fingers upon his burning hand, when she had handed him the ring. "Heavens knows, I am your captive in- deed, more than you imagine, more than I myself im- agined." Suddenly his passion swept through him. He felt he must take her in his arms, and crush her to his breast, and kiss her upon her pale mouth. But she evaded him, and with a deeply wise look, such as a child, playing at being a grown-up, may wear, said, motioning to a bed of white tulips : "Sssch ! See those children watching us yonder ! You would not behave indecorously, would you, in the pres- ence of those little girls, all in white dresses, ready for their first communion ?" As in the morning, he felt that she had allayed his pas- sion as quickly as she had aroused it. He loved her so holily at the moment that, had she bade him, he would have kissed the ground on which she had trod. Sud- denly he rebelled, suddenly he became angry that in view of his very evident emotion, she was capable of remain- ing so cool, so detached, so distant. But the wave of his anger receded almost immediately. Had he not desired above everything to find a woman who would have this power, who would not merely be beautiful flesh, but beautiful spirit informing beautiful flesh, exalting it, en- nobling it, making it more desirable, more wonderful ? "I have not yet told you where we are," he said pres- ently. "Does Eden require a definition ?" "No, but an explanation." "An explanation?" Startled by a sudden light in his eyes, she drew away from him. 92 THE GREATER JOY "The explanation is impossible in words. The only way to arrive at it is to eat of the Apple — the Apple of Eden." He took her hand. "But we will not eat of it to-day," he continued gently, to reassure her, for he saw terror mounting to her eyes. "We will merely look at it from a distance, and think how wonderful it is." She withdrew her hand from his. It was warm and moist from his clasp, and she thrust it back into the dewy grass, as if to cool it. He sat regarding her closely, almost hungrily. She was very pale. It seemed to Ulrich that he had never seen any woman quite so white before, but her cheeks were tinged with pink, not through and through, but delicately marked as some peonies are marked, along the lips, with a faint shell pink. And her hair, of the lightly smoked meerschaum hue, was so fair near the roots that the line where hair and skin joined was barely perceptible. Her fairness imparted to her an appear- ance of exaggerated innocence. He endeavored to get his mind away from himself, and fell in with her playful mood. "Have you noticed the fuchsias?" he asked. "They are the wedding-bells. See, the bell itself is red, the color of love, and the cup that holds it is purple, the color of royalty. Thus does the fuchsia signify the majesty of the empire of love. Have you noticed your wedding candles ? No, I thought not. Look at that fir-tree, and this. The spring has lighted the tips of the candles, and the flame burns pale green, the color of pristine purity." They dined in a round pavilion, open on all sides, ad- mitting air and light, and completely overgrown and hung with wistarias, and the wealth of the fairy-like bios- THE GREATER JOY 93 soms with its lacy, fern-like foliage, that transformed itself to stained glass windows as the magic rays of the sun penetrated it, and painted upon the snowy linen on the tables bright splotches of emerald and amethyst. The delicate perfume of the flowers mingled with the rich odor of the food, etherealizing it, making of their repast a matter less of the grosser appetite than of their esthetic sensibilities. Ulrich took one of these blossoms in his hand. The soft, flaccid flower fell limply from either side of his hand, and Alice felt the unaccountable loathing sweep over her again, which, at sight of his hands, she so vio- lently experienced. There seemed to her some foulness, some vitiating uncleanness in those soft, white, perfervid hands. Thus, she thought, might they handle a corpse, lingering over the touch of it, gloatingly, perhaps, cer- tainly without disgust, without any hostile emotion of any kind, feeling, moreover, a morbid enjoyment at con- tact of the cool, unresponsive lifeless flesh. And it came to her that these hands, these same hands that handled a corpse and this exquisite blossom alike dispassionately, had caressed and mastered women as the hands of other men caressed and played with and mastered horses and dogs. She could not disentangle her vision from his hand, slowly and with evident pleasure moving the flower to and fro, with a tremulous, waving motion. An instinct- ive horror of the man again swept over her, and it seemed to her that she would never be able to sit opposite to him for a full hour, and pretend that she was enjoying her food in the presence of these well-trained menials. They were alone for a few moments, and Ulrich prof- ited by it to say : "These blossoms are a perfect presentment of love. 94 THE GREATER JOY Their delicate hue is symbolic of the mist that enshrouds love : like distant mountains, their appeals to our imagi- nation, reminds us of that which we have never known, sinks into our soul. See, how the separate flowers that make up the whole are but loosely bound together. You can pull forth one blossom, and at first you will hardly notice its absence, but on turning over the entire flower, you will at once perceive that it is mutilated. Thus with love. Love for one individual is made up of a thousand different motives, a thousand different attractions. Re- move one of those attractions, one of those fascinations, and you have mutilated that particular love. It will never be the same again." They had four persons to wait on them. One waiter carried the trays from the kitchen; one boy, dressed in a fantastic dress suit with long pantaloons, who, Ulrich explained, was a genuine imported "piccolo," and who waited on the waiters ; the waiter who served the dishes and attended to the champagne; and the waiter who placed dishes and wine before them. Alice was very much amused by this waiter's gravity. He seemed to bow every time as he placed a dish before Ulrich. She had never seen any human being convey such an impression of deference as he employed, and once, when Ulrich asked him something or other in German, he replied: "J a, Hoheitr The doctor flashed an annihilatory look at the man, beneath which he seemed to wither. Alice had somewheres read or heard that word before, and she was sure it signified a high rank, much higher than that of baron, surely. Was Ulrich then a count? Or a marquis? Or possibly a duke? She could think of no higher rank than that. THE GREATER JOY 95 The dessert having been served, Ulrich dismissed the waiters, and Alice asked, her curiosity getting the better of her: "What does that word mean —Hoheit?" "I thought, dearest, we had agreed that we should not eat of the fruit of knowledge to-day?" "So we did," she responded gaily. "We aie just to admire it, and perhaps tear off a bit of the peel so as to get a better glimpse of the appetizing fruit." "How clever you are, Alice!" He arose, walked around the table, and to her amaze- ment, fell on his knees before her. "Alice," he said, with great seriousness, "I love you. I cannot tell you how much I love you. Tell me that you care just a little for me?" The girl put her hand under his chin. She felt a lit- tle thrill as she did this. She did not really want to do this, but again that strange, blind force seemed td push her on. She looked lingeringly into his eyes. They seemed, at the moment, like pools of water through which the moon had sent a thousand and one arrows of glim- mering gold. There crept over her a delicious feel- ing of languor, of physical nearness to him, in which there was nothing violent, nothing to trouble her, which seemed rather to be a species of physical poetry. "Are you not tearing away a very large part of the skin?" she asked. "You are cruel." He arose abruptly, and dusted his knees with his hand- kerchief, without looking at her. Her heart began to beat wildly. Had she made him angry? She wondered that she should care so much. But he was not angry, as she saw when he looked at her a moment later. 96 THE GREATER JOY "I will answer your question before the day is up/' he said gravely, "and you, in return, will answer mine." There was something- of his former cool supercilious- ness in his voice as he made this statement. The waiter in the silk knee breeches appeared and put a question to Ulrich in rapid German. The doctor, in reply, uttered a decisive, annoyed "Nein" accompanied by a look so black that the girl's curiosity was aroused anew. The air of mystery that hung about this man was cer- tainly delightful. Her love of the romantic was being satisfied at last. She stood before him, her hands clasped upon her bosom. "What has made you angry, Ulrich?" she asked, aware that her voice was modulated to a caressing tone. "No, no, you must not ask." "You deny me an answer to everything," she pouted. "Why will you be so mysterious?" "Do you really desire to know ?" He had put an arm about her waist, holding her loosely in his embrace. "Of course I do." "I warn you." A little frightened at her own temerity, she continued smiling into his eyes, inviting him to speak. He quickly drew her to him, and pressing her head upon his left shoulder, he whispered in her ear : "He wanted to know whether we desired a room." "Oh !" She tried to disengage herself, but he held her, and she felt her ear between his teeth. She gave a sharp cry of pain. He released her. "You hurt me," she said with some show of indigna- tion. THE GREATER JOY 9' "I am glad I did." Before she could help herself, he had her in his arms again, and had his lips upon hers. She felt his teeth close upon her lower lip. She did not feel the pain, but she was faint, and to steady herself, she put out her free hand as if for support. "Let me go, let me go," she moaned. Suddenly she grew limp, her knees gave way. She had fainted. She felt cold water on her face. "I am sorry," Ulrich was saying. "Forgive me, for- give me. It was inexcusable. I had not meant to." She was sitting in an arm-chair, her head propped up by a pillow, and Ulrich, white and frightened-looking, was near her, but making no effort to support her. Sud- denly he bent over, and taking a cambric handkerchief from his pocket, bade her open her lips. She obeyed without hesitation, and as he brought the kerchief away she saw a drop of blood upon it. "You had better rinse your mouth," he said, "and then drink a little water." He poured out some water, and again she obeyed him blindly, and while she was drinking the water she won- dered at her obedience and at the pleasure it gave her to blindly do what he told her to do. "Let us go out into the garden," he said, "there ". no air here. The scent of these flowers drives one mad. It is like the fumes of opium. Come, let us go." He was very gentle and tender with her now, almost reverential. A curious sensation came over her, a sen- sation of belonging to him, of his belonging to her. It seemed to her that life was a vast poem which it re- quired two to read, and that this strange, mysterious, dazzling man was going to con the lines with her. They came upon the ruins of a church ; the belfry was 98 THE GREATER JOY still standing and was covered with ivy, and the blue sky- peeped through the chinks and holes of the crumbling wall. And he related to her how, over a century ago, there had been a flourishing and prosperous village upon this site. The villagers had lived as one great family, all men working, no man wanting, but the patriarch who at- tended to the dealings of the village with the outside world, died suddenly, and the villagers, left to them- selves, helpless as children, when coping with the world, had one by one left their homes and gone elsewhere to seek new fortunes. They came upon the ruins of a cottage. The roof was gone, the walls were shreds and patches, but one window remained clean-cut and surrounded by decaying walls, and one solitary rose had thrust itself through this an- cient window-frame, seeking the brighter light that waited it outside of the ruins. Ulrich was going to pick it. for her, but she restrained him. "Do not pick it," she said. She pointed to a bit of broken flower-pot near the roots of the rose. Perhaps it was planted in that flower-pot by some lover, and given to his sweetheart. Leave it alone. Let it live its little day, and then perish here, where it has grown and bloomed for nearly a century. Perhaps, in the far-away past two lovers stood and looked at it, and enjoyed its beauty and its perfume on a spring day, even as you and I are standing " Her voice trailed off without completing the sentence. A sudden intimacy sprang up between them, enriched by a feeling of remote melancholy by the vision which she had invoked. The wind stirred uneasily in the branches of the century-old trees above them, and looking at each other, the same thought came to them both, how years THE GREATER JOY 99 and years ago, those hypothetical lovers might have stood and listened to those same trees, then in their in- fancy, full of promise, full of the future, as themselves. What had been their fate? What was their own fate to be? "Do you remember Oscar Wilde's lines from Reading Gaol?" asked Ulrich. " 'Out of his mouth a red, red rose, Out of his heart a white ' " Perhaps some villager is buried here, the lover of long ago or his lass ; perhaps this rose is fed by what was once her ruby mouth." "Don't," she said. "Don't. How can you think of such hateful things now? See how beautiful all the world is! You have spoiled the rose for me. Let us go on." But Ulrich was in a strange, a perverse mood, and when they came upon a purple hyacinth, the last that re- mained unwithered of an entire bed, he picked it, and showing it to Alice, said : "What does it remind you of?" he questioned. Before she could reply, he continued : "Those curled petals are like the curls of a man's dead mistress, whose lover has been maddened by the futility of the kisses showered upon her cold cheek. The poison of love and the poison of death thus subtly blended, cor- roded her golden curls and turned them purple — the color of decay, of majesty, of love." Ulrich delivered these words in that low, luxurious tone of voice which Alice had come to fear so greatly, which always aroused in her the feeling as if some in- visible force were enshrouding her with some garment in whose folds lurked a poison, as in the Golden Fleece, 100 THE GREATER JOY which would paralyze her, rob her of her volition, which would eat into her marrow, her flesh, her soul. "You are terrible/' she said. "Terrible. You love to dwell on perverse thoughts." She became frightened at her emotion. She foresaw that unless she controlled her imagination, Ulrich would perceive it, and would again attempt to embrace her, as he had*done in the pavilion. She handed him back the hyacinth. "Take it," she said. "I cannot bear to touch it now. You have spoiled that for me also. Hyacinths will never look the same. And I loved them so because of Omar Khayyam." "Omar Khayyam?" he questioned. He had not read the Rubaiyat. She repeated : "I sometimes think that never blows so red A rose as where some slaughtered Caesar bled, That every hyacinth the garden wears Dropped in her lap from some once lovely head." Ulrich listened attentively. "That is new to me," he said. "The lines are very beautiful. But since you admire them also, I do not see why you found fault with me for expressing my thoughts on the purple hyacinth before, since the lines of Omar contain almost the same thought, only it is veiled by him, made more subtle, and is therefore more insidious, more insinuating." "I will not admit that," she said. She spoke vehemently to reassure herself, for she per- ceived there was a kernel of truth in Ulrich's statement. He smiled, and they sat down together in the grass, under a horse-chestnut tree. His voice was infinitely caressing and ingratiating. He said : THE GREATER JOY 101 "Yes, Alice, you do. But you are like those, Puritans who cannot bear to look upon an undraped, cDrnpletor- nude statue of the human form. But if the sculptor were to chisel a figure with a vestment as fine as gossamer, veiling the bare flesh, but revealing every contour, every outline, they will take no exception. Yet that spider-web garment infinitely enhances the seductiveness of the fig- ure, because it partially hides, partially accentuates the voluptuousness of the bosom, the hips, the abdomen, thereby stimulating the imagination to penetrate beneath the veil." Alice did not reply. She looked up at him with calm, innocent eyes. He gazed down into them, seeming to lose himself in their depths. It seemed to him that her eyes besought him to leave her alone, not to torment her, but as he continued to gaze into her orbs, he saw the pleading note disappear, and instead they became trou- bled, as tropical waters on a stormy day suddenly change from indigo blue to murkiness. They became impene- trable, as if she had consciously slipped a film over them to hide her thoughts from him. There was a menace in them, as if she meant to convey to him that he had better beware, that she, too, could shake him to the very depths of his being. They became provocative, as if she were no longer afraid to test her strength against his, to op- pose herself against him in the struggle which would sooner or later take place between them. She became alluring, captivating. She no longer seemed to him a simple young girl, ignorant, innocent, inexperienced, but a woman deep in knowledge, rich in the wisdom of such things, thoroughly formidable. "Kiss me," he whispered. She smiled ever so faintly, but the smile altered only the lines of her mouth, and in no way changed the 103 THE GREATER JOY sphinx-like look of the eyes. Ulrich's pulse began to -throb, his bear* to beat. "Ulrich," she said, speaking in an exaggeratedly chaste voice, "you must not kiss me again. Kisses are sweetmeats, and too many bonbons in one day are not good for little boys." She stroked his hair lightly, brushing it back with her ringers from his temples with a gesture such as a mother might employ in soothing a fretful child. "How she dominates me!" he thought. "How she stimulates me only to lull my senses asleep again with a playful phrase, with a glance from her eyes, with the sub- tle intonation of her voice, with the touch of her cool ringers !" He closed his eyes, and then spoke again : "Alice, I have something to tell you. But tell me first, I beseech you, do you love me?" "I love you, yes, as part of a unique day, as I love the sky, the flowers, the trees, the grass. They have all helped to make this day unforgettable, perfect." He caught her hand with sudden violence, and wrung it so forcefully, so roughly, that she squirmed with the pain. "Alice," he said, "you must be serious. I love you. You cannot realize how much. Never have I loved any woman as I love you." A feeling of exhilaration came over her as he spoke. She became calm. Leaning back against a tree, she re- garded him tranquilly. The visible emotion he was laboring under quieted her, pacified her inconceivably. It created in her a desire to play with him, to see him be- come more intense, more uncontrollable. "What are you thinking of ?" he asked, speaking in the ^same vehement tone. THE GREATER JOY 103 "I am wondering," she said softly, "how many women have heard you say those very words." He flushed. She could see that he was very angry. She wondered what he would say. She was enjoying his agitation. "You are a child," he burst forth. "You are a simple- ton. I have never paid any woman I desired to win the compliment of lying to her " "I am the first one ?" she smiled cruelly. "No, I did not pay you the compliment of lying. I paid you the compliment, no less great, of telling you the truth. That is because I desire you as wife or sweet- heart, as you choose." She had not expected him to come to the point so sud- denly. She, in turn, became agitated. He was standing beside her, towering above her — it seemed to her excited imagination — ready to hurl himself upon her like an avalanche of fire and snow. In one frightful moment of self-revelation, it came to her that if she dominated him, his dominion over her was no less, was perhaps far greater because of her youth, and destined to become cataclysmal for her, subversive of her peace of mind. She did not understand why he should ask her to marry him after knowing her only a few days. She was thor- oughly frightened. She feared, she knew not what. "I will be neither," she said. "Why not? Are you married?" "No, no." That reassured him. All women of spirit, when young, repudiate the idea of marriage. "Alice," he said, "in offering you marriage, I must, as a man of honor, explain to you just who I am." Speaking quickly, in an alert, incisive, authoritative way, he told her that he was a prince of Hohenhoff- 104 THE GREATER JOY Hohe, the most important of the kingdoms of the Ger man Empire, excepting Prussia and Bavaria. Sylvia's father had been the eldest son of the present king, his grandfather, whose demise was expected at any moment. Sylvia's father was dead, and she was his only living child, but the Salic law barred her from the succession. The second son of Ulrich's grandfather, the present king, had married late in life, so that until recently Ul- rich, who was the only son of the present king's young- est son, had been heir-apparent, or Erbprinz. But the marriage of the second son of the old king had resulted in one son, Prinz Eitel Egon, aged eight, so that his own pretensions to the throne through the birth of this little boy had become remote, a fact which troubled him very little, as he had always preferred medicine to politics. Still rank was rank, and the possibility remained that he might one day inherit the crown of Hohenhoff-Hohe, and having been brought up as heir-apparent, and being thoroughly drilled and schooled to occupy the throne, he felt considerable scruples about contracting an alliance which would bar his legitimate offspring from inheriting his titles. "Once Eitel Egon is married, and has children," said Ulrich, "I shall be at liberty co marry as I please. Until then I can offer you a morganatic marriage only, which allows me to retain my right to the succession for my children through a subsequent marriage with a woman of my own rank. I have always held that a morganatic marriage is an insult to a woman, a worse insult by far than to ask a woman to accept me as a lover, for a mor- ganatic marriage is merely a sort of sop thrown to a woman to ease her conscience. It in no way secures the rights of her children to their father's titles or rank or estate. It is merely a guarantee that her husband THE GREATER JOY 105 cannot discard her unceremoniously when he is tired of her. Is not that an insult in itself? Would you, would any woman of fine sensibilities desire to forcibly retain her claim upon a man, should love wane? And you, were you ten times my wife, Alice, would not hold me more securely than as my sweetheart. And as to a reg- ular marriage, which would force me to forego my ap- panages and to swear away the right of succession of my children, I am quite certain that you, you of all women, will understand my scruples which tell me I have no right to dispose of the rights of my unborn children. It is a fine point, but you will see it, I am sure, in the same light as I do." Alice looked at him in bewilderment. His recital had been torture to her. His entire viewpoint was so differ- ent from anything with which she had ever come in con- tact, that she was at loss to find her way through this labyrinth of newness. Of one thing she felt certain. He had not meant the offer as an insult. With the gen- erosity of the pure-minded woman, she exonerated him. In this point, also, his craftiness had triumphed over her innocence. He had, of course, no intention of marrying her. He Had spoken for effect simply, hoping to dazzle her by telling her of his rank. He had not dazzled her nearly as much as he had expected to, however, and he regretted his frankness. The truth of the matter was that Alice was so completely fascinated by the man, that there was no emotion left in her pure little heart to be- stow upon the prince. "Answer me, dear," he implored. "I think," she said weakly, "that you ought to marry a woman of your own rank." "I have tried to," he said quietly. He was much struck by her answer and by the elimination of self which 106 THE GREATER JOY it showed. "I have tried to make up my mind to marry Sylvia. It would have been fair to her, for it would have brought her children a step nearer to the throne of Ho- henhoff-Hohe than if she married some one else. Also for the following reason the marriage would have been eminently desirable: Adjoining our kingdom is the Grandduchy Hohenhoff-Lohe. The present Grandduke is an uncle of Sylvia's, on her mother's side. The Salic law does not bar Sylvia from the grandduchy, and as her uncle is unmarried and childless, it is safe to assume the grandduchy will go to her. He is dying of cancer, and may live ten years more, or again may die to-morrow. Now if Sylvia and I were to marry, it would be quite possible, even likely, that the grandduchy and the king- dom would some day be united, as they were in the fif- teenth century, making Hohenhoff-Hohe the second kingdom instead of the third, of Germany. But Sylvia is in love with some one else. And so am I, now. Pos- sibly, if I had loved her, I could have made her love me." "You speak as if love were a thing to be forced," said Alice, a little indignantly. She was only twenty-one, and at twenty-one we are prone to look upon love as a heaven- born gift, independent of any earthly circumstances, such as propinquity and financial considerations. "What a child you are!" he said indulgently. "I be- lieve that any man in the world, if he is really in love with a woman, can force her to respond, unless her affec- tions are engaged elsewhere, and even then, if he is clever, and not too ill-looking, and willing to exert him- self in pleasing her, he may have a good chance to win out. For this reason, if for no other, a man should have a variety of love affairs before he thinks of marrying, for in no other way can he learn all the clever tricks, the THE GREATER JOY 107 dainty artifices, the little enticements by which love lives." "You are terrible," said Alice. "Love is nothing to you but a matter of calculation. You leave nothing to the heart, nothing to the affections." "You are mistaken," he retorted. "I believe in the af- fections, although what is commonly called heart is merely an amalgamation of the senses and the mentality. But I am waiting for your answer ? Will you consent to be my sweetheart?" It seemed to Alice that she was living in a dream. It had never occurred to her that any man would attempt to talk to her in this way. She had believed, whenever she had heard of some girl who had gone wrong, that it must be the girl's fault, wholly and entirely, no matter what well-meaning folks said to the contrary. She had always supposed that about "that sort of a man" there must be some monstrous aura, some visible, tangible, horrible something to warn everybody of his inner rot- tenness. Certainly she had always supposed such a man to be vulgar, to behave in a blatantly vulgar manner, to be ill-bred, stupid, and ordinary in every way. And here was this aristocratic, brilliant stranger, who was quite the most wonderful creature she had ever met, and he was asking her quite calmly, in a charmingly well- bred manner, and with the most engaging frankness, to be — his mistress ! She wanted to repulse him, and she did not know how. There had been moments when she had wished to hurt him. But she did not wish to pain him at present. She wanted to be soft and sweet with him, and yet say him nay. She reflected that it had been wrong of her to come with him to-day, since he had already asked her to come 108 THE GREATER JOY to his rooms, and that certainly should have been a suffi- cient indication of his intentions. She should be feeling indignation, contempt, and she felt neither. At least she should have regarded him as an enemy. And she could not bring herself to do this. Always and always that strange, wonderful feeling of physical nearness to him brushed over her, and filled her with a sensation which she could not compare to any other, because it was sweeter and more delicious than anything she had ever experienced or had ever dreamed of. She had thought that to be in love would be very dif- ferent. She had believed love to be a sort of sublimated admiration, friendship on an exalted and exaggerated plane, but she had never believed or thought that it could induce such a feeling of delicious happiness and joy. "You have not answered me," said Ulrich. She took herself in hand vigorously. "Doctor von Dette," she said, "I am very sorry you are saying these things to me. Can we not live just for to-day, and not think of the future?" "I cannot think of the future without you," he said. "You are very cruel," said Alice. "I realize that your rank is a gulf between us." "It is no gulf at all, unless you do not care for me." "I do care for you," she said in a low, frightened voice. "Please, dear Ulrich, do not let us continue this conver- sation. It frightens me." Watching her, the doctor reflected that this might be some feminine feint intended to prolong his suspense and to place her in the light of not appearing over eager. The thought no sooner occurred to him than he con- cluded this must be the correct solution of her diffidence. In view of his offer of marriage, this made him angry. THE GREATER JOY 109 He wished he had not mentioned Sylvia's name. Evi- dently this girl did not in the least appreciate what it meant for a prince of the blood to offer her even a mor- ganatic marriage. Of course he had not really meant to marry her, even morganatically, but he had expected her to believe his offer sincere, and he was sure she did believe it sincere. He wondered whether he had been mistaken in her. He had believed her the sort of woman who perceiving a willingness on the part of the man to make a sacrifice, even the most trifling, will, in order not to be outdone in generosity, offer to make the most ex- travagant sacrifices for his sake. His avowal of love, however, had been sincere, and it mortified him keenly to perceive the placidity with which she had accepted this. Doubtless he had cheapened him- self in her eyes, since women rarely appreciated sincerity and gentleness, preferring the masterly, lordly hand, the lover who never completely loses control of himself in whose words there is always a germ of hypocrisy. Suddenly she said : "I am deeply grateful to you. I realize now that you care for me more than you have cared for any one else, as you said before, when I would not believe you." Not knowing what was agitating her, her words seemed to him insufferably arrogant. He replied coldly : "Naturally I was sincere. No man cares for any two women in the same way. You have entertained me re- gally as no other woman ever did before, because you did not arouse my amorous propensities to the degree that a day spent alone with another woman would have done." He spoke the exact truth in saying this, yet it is by the garb in which we clothe truth, that we give it its com- plexion. And he knew very well that that which in his 110 THE GREATER JOY eyes so inimitably increased her charm and made her precious to him, she, in her imperfect reading of him, would construe as a deficiency in herself, something that made him love her less. "In pursuing what I thought would be an agreeable amour," he soliloquized that evening, "I have discovered the woman who will change the face of the universe for me, who will make of love a rite, an ecstasy, a fitting cul- mination of a great lyric poem, whose rhythm is the pulsing of the blood, whose words are heart-beats, whose phrases are the immeasurable, vibrant immensity into which lovers are plunged by their kisses." CHAPTER VI Ulrich's annoyance did not wear away. He was not impetuous as a rule, and he was almost ashamed of him- self for having allowed his passion to carry him off his feet. He could not deny to himself that failure to win the girl would make him intolerably miserable. He wanted her, every fibre of her. Never, in all his wild life, had he desired any woman as ardently as he desired this snow-white creature, this snow-dipped girl with her halo of lightly smoked meerschaum-colored hair. He was filled with bitter resentment because she had repulsed him. He determined now to mortify her in some way or other, to subject her to cruel manoeuvres, since she did not appreciate mildness and kindness. It was with this determination to hurt her rampant within him that he entered the library the following Tuesday morning. "I have made an egregious ass of myself," he thought, as he sat down beside her. "I shall, after seeing her daily for another week, discover some imperfection which will disgust me, annoy me, and make me loathe her." He watched her closely, as she read aloud some notes which ostensibly he wanted to compare with his own, and was amazed anew at her sweetness and charm, the bloom upon her skin, the perfection of her rounded bosom, the wonderful harmony of her face. The circles under her eyes, set deeply in her head, showed plainly this morning her fatigue, and this sign of lassitude, due to exertion or unrest of some sort, lashed his passion into a new whirlpool of heat, into a cauldron of turbulence. Ill 112 THE GREATER JOY He became frightened. "I love her even more than I thought." It occurred to him that he might run mad or fall seriously ill if she persisted in rejecting him. He felt at that moment that if she refused him, he might be capable of killing her. She met his eyes at this instant, and the terror that swept over her on seeing the expression in his eyes and face deepened her own orbs until the blue iris was almost as dark as the pupil. "Don't, please !" she murmured faintly. "Don't what?" he asked brutally. As she did not re- ply, he continued mercilessly. "You must not attach too much importance to my ut- terances of Sunday. Of course, I am very fond of you, but, after all, you are very much like other women. One woman is as good as another." "Why, then I ?" she asked, goaded into incaution. "You are the available woman," he replied noncha- lantly, flecking a bit of tobacco from the lapel of his coat. Alice flushed. "Your theory is monstrous," she said angrily. "If you think to win me by such brutality, you are mistaken." Her mortification was balm to his wounded pride. "How do you know that I am really so very eager to win you ? I may be merely amusing myself, keeping my hand in practice in the art of wooing. In spite of your beauty, which is undeniable, you may not be the sort of 7 woman that men rave about." \ "You are— oh — atrocious." "Because I disavow any intention of wrong toward you? You are hard to please. Your quarrel Sunday, when you believed I wanted you, was, I believe, with my immorality." "At any rate, I refuse to continue this conversation." THE GREATER JOY 113 The color was going and comir on her cheek with nervousness. ' "Do you also refuse to allow me to continue it ? I am quite satisfied to do the talking and have you simply listen, for, since I converse well, and you do not, I prefer to have you remain silent/' "You baffle me. If I allow you to continue speaking, it is only because my curiosity is piqued, and I desire to learn why you are so wantonly rude to me to-day." He smiled derisively ; derision, too, seemed to be in his glance, when he answered : "My rudeness is really a compliment. It presupposes that other men have so spoiled you with candied compli- ments that, in order to impress you, it is necessary to affect rudeness of speech." "I'll waive that reason, since you must not believe that I am so simple-minded as to think it the true one. But if my conversation is really so little pleasing to you, why do you bother with me — waste your time on me?" "Because you are a beautiful woman, perhaps the most perfectly beautiful woman I have ever seen. And be- cause perfect beauty is always adorable, whether in a pic- ture, a melody, a poem, a woman." "The latter particularly?" "Of course — the latter particularly, and I will tell you why. A beautiful woman has always an element of pre- ciousness which other forms of beauty lack." "I do not follow you," said Alice, off her guard again. "I am glad you admit the limitations of your under- standing." She brushed that affront aside, lest, in noticing it, he begin to moralize on woman's vanity. She was horribly afraid, she found, of not only himself, but of his wit. "Unless the element of preciousness you refer to," she 114 THE GREATER JOY said, seeing that he did not offer to explain, "is that a beautiful woman is — well, always presents certain possi- bilities to a man." Ulrich looked at her coldly. They might have been utter strangers, meeting for the first time, so aloof was the look with which he fixed her. "How much more sensual-minded women are than men!" he said disdainfully. "Here we are, in the midst of an ethical dissertation, and you make a remark that is raw and banal." Alice became very angry. She was so angry that she could not speak. Such anger, she thought, must propel the murderer. What a beast he was ! She was glad that she had re- fused him. But as she watched his dark, handsome face, looking into a corner of the room with the utmost placid- ity, she knew that she was not honest with herself. Heavens and earth — how she loved him ! Having finished lighting a cigarette, the doctor con- tinued impassively : "The element of preciousness I refer to as existing in a woman's beauty is its perishable quality. Take your- self, for instance. To-day you are a Venus. Twenty, years hence you will either be as lean as a pole, or dis- agreeably fat. At any rate, you will be ungainly. Your hair will be streaked with gray, possibly it will be thin and partially reveal the scalp, and your contours, so ex- quisite and alluring to-day, will be ridiculous, repulsive, a matter of jest among the younger generation." Tears arose in Alice's eyes. He was intolerable ! No, suffer what she might, she would not let him see her cry. She would not afford him the satisfaction of gloating over the misery he inflicted. She spoke bravely, almost diffidently. THE GREATER JOY 115 "To-day at least I am beautiful, and men do not ridi- cule me just yet — they adore me." "How many of them?" His chicanery was amazing. She turned and met his sneer. "Oh, a few of them." She succeeded admirably in feigning the diffidence which she was far from feeling. "Yes, a few — you are right, a few. Out of the hun- dreds of men you have met, how many have cared for you ? And of those who have cared for you, how many have cared for you lastingly? Reflect upon this. It will depreciate your own good opinion of yourself." Alice's wrath exploded. "I am by no means the con- ceited idiot you take me for," she said angrily. "I can- not help knowing I am beautiful. You yourself admit that, in spite of your effrontery." "There you are again ! Your beauty once more. It's a common-place by this time. But remember, the aver- age man has so deformed an esthetic sense, an imagina- tion so crippled, so degenerate and inactive, that supreme ugliness, ten to one, would fascinate him much more than perfect beauty. And I myself admit, if a woman could be found who would be the embodiment of ugliness, I be- lieve, for the sake of variety, as a lash to my jaded appe- tite, she, not you " "I refuse to listen. Let us go on with the work." "You refuse to listen because I depreciate your value. You will listen to anything but that." The girl laughed hysterically. He was wearing her out. His resourcefulness was appalling. She felt her- self unequal to continue the fencing bout. Yet she forced herself to say mildly : "Wait until the next time you pay me a compliment and see whether that remark is justifiable." 116 THE GREATER JOY "The next time I pay you a compliment ? Have I then paid you so many? Certainly not to-day. And aren't you inviting a compliment from me now — just to prove, of course, that you won't listen?" "Yes, of course," she said, hoping to take the wind out of his sails. "Of course, I am waiting eagerly for your next compliment." "Well, how many have I paid you ? You haven't an- swered that question." "I really cannot clog up my memory trying to remem- ber all your empty chatter." He feigned a tremendous amazement. "Positively, Alice, that's almost clever. Your wits are being sharpened by contact with mine." "That is strange. Friction with so highly polished, keen an instrument as your brain, one would imagine would cut to wee little bits a poor little intellect like mine." "Positively, that is clever." "That is a compliment," she smiled. " I refuse to con- tinue the conversation. To our work." "No," he replied, regarding her fixedly, "I don't want to work. I'm sick to death of this everlasting medical paraphernalia. I have that with me every day in the year, day and night, but I cannot look at you, speak to you every hour of the day and night." "Has it occurred to you how unpleasant it might be if I reported your impudence ?" "No, you wouldn't do that, Alice. You are too honest to report pilfering of sweets in which you yourself have participated." "Are you obtuse enough to imagine I have enjoyed this morning ?" "Of course you have. I'm a novelty, if nothing else. THE GREATER JOY 117 Confess, dearest, you have never met any one like me before." She looked at him, he at her. She laughed. He had hoped she would fling herself into his arms, but her laugh told him that she was cool and self-contained. He de- cided to resort to desperate measures; his passion was blinding him ; he forgot the place, the hour, forgot every- thing but that he loved her to madness. He caught her in his arms, and smothered her with kisses, his mouth travelling with inconceivable violence and rapidity over her lips, her cheeks, her eyes, her forehead, finally fasten- ing themselves, like barnacles, like lichen, upon her throat, threatening to strangle her, to suffocate her, to choke her, like some deadly parasite. She struggled against him in vain. Her strength was no match for his. Realizing the futility of her efforts, she abandoned herself to his kisses in a state of passivity, being neither hostile nor eager, wondering at her indif- ference. Finally he set her free. He was prepared for a terrific outburst from her of some kind. But as he relinquished her, she suddenly realized the full import of her passivity — in cold blood she had felt no loathing of the violence he had displayed, no disgust at the virulence of his emo- tions. "I love him," she said to herself, with conviction. "If I did not, I would detest him after this." All the while he was watching her furtively, wonder- ing what she would do or say to vindicate her modesty, her virtue. He was disappointed. She gathered up her few personal possessions, a silver pen-holder, a little pocket knife — he noted that she slipped the blade carefully into its sheath — and then went to the door. He, seeing her intention, arose, and got there before she did. 118 THE GREATER JOY "Are you very angry?" he asked, seriously alarmed, his hand on the knob. "I am not angry at all," she replied tranquilly. Surprised, not understanding, somewhat cowed by her unruffled calm, he opened the door for her. "That," she said calmly, "is the reason I shall never see you again/' CHAPTER VII For the first time in her life, Alice rejoiced that she had a small independent income. Securing her immediate dismissal from the hospital, on the plea of overwork and ill-health, she left New York within forty-eight hours for a small hotel in the country, where she had summered before. She was in a frame of mind which defies description. She no longer attempted to delude herself into believing that the situation, as far as her own affections were concerned, lay within her con- trol. A perfect tempest of terror came over her at the mere thought of again encountering the doctor. She had vaguely hoped that a change of scene might bring about a change of spirits. But she was in that morbid mental condition when direction of thought is no longer under control. Everything reminded her of the man who had stormed her heart with such incredible swiftness. She could not look upon a certain pallid complexion, without thinking of him, or upon cream-colored shirts or striped neckties, or cloth of a certain design. She could not see a rose, but it reminded her of that memorable Sunday. A green tree recalled the wistaria pavilion. She could not, in brief, drag her thoughts away from him, no matter what she saw or where she was, and so it happened that the most inoffensive and irrelevant article became, to her ex- cited imagination, deeply reminiscent of her lover. Even the guests at the hotel failed to arouse her inter- est. The impact of Ulricas personality upon her own 119 120 THE GREATER JOY had been so pervasively powerful, he had impinged upon her so profoundly, that it surrounded her, as it were, with a crust, or coat of armor, which shut out the rest of the world effectually, and kept other personalities from mak- ing the slightest impression. She spent a miserable fortnight. She thought at first that he would follow her, that, in some way, he would succeed in locating her. Mad thoughts came to her. Why, if he really loved her, did he not kidnap her ? She imagined what she would have done if she had been a man. One afternoon, on returning from a walk, she was greeted by the bell-boy with the news that a gentleman was waiting in the parlor to see her. He handed her a small envelope, which was sealed. Breaking the envelope, she read : "Sylvia is very ill, and is asking incessantly for 'the beautiful blonde nurse/ Please do me the courtesy to be- lieve me. I am writing the truth. I entreat you to see me for five minutes. Ulrich." It was possible, of course, that this was a mere subter- fuge, but Alice believed that he had written the truth. Her heart was beating so madly that she could not go in to see him at once. So she stood in the hallway, appar- ently busy with another letter, but really seeking only to quell the tumult which had arisen within her. At last she went into the room where he was wait- ing. She at once noticed the extraordinary pallor of his face, the gravity of his expression. He bowed and said: "Thank you for seeing me. Sylvia is very ill indeed. You will remember the day we met the first time — you and she, you and I — she wanted you to promise that you would nurse her should she ever fall ill." THE GREATER JOY 121 His voice was very humble. She felt within her a sort o£ fierce arrogance. "I never intended to go out nursing," she replied al- most insolently. "I took up nursing as a preliminary breaking in for the study of medicine — because I wanted an occupation." She was going to add that she had some means, but it struck her that in doing so she might sound a note of vulgarity ; and she had no desire to appear a vulgarian in his eyes. "I understand that," he answered in a most concilia- tory tone. "Nor did we intend to ask you to do any of the actual nursing. All I ask, for Sylvia's sake, is that you come and supervise the other nurses, and remain with her when she is conscious, as a companion. She is very ill. It is pitiable to hear her beg for you." Still Alice fenced and parried. "The Baroness and I have met only once," she said. "How can she have such an overwhelming desire to have me near her? Surely she has friends, real friends, friends of her own rank, of her own class." He did not reply, and Alice, finally forced, she knew not by what occult power, to raise her eyes, saw a pained expression in his face — an expression which was purely humane, and which had in it nothing of sex. She had not thought him capable of the kind-heartedness thus I suddenly revealed. But instead of softening her, it only made her the harder, more supercilious, more keen to inflict pain on him. His dignity of manner irritated her. "I am sorry," she said in a frigid, insincere voice, "that ! you are so worried about your cousin." Still he did not speak. The air between them seemed almost to palpably pulsate, to vibrate audibly. Without an effort to veil her sarcasm, she said : 122 THE GREATER JOY "You seem extremely grieved about her/' "I am extremely grieved," he replied without hesita- tions "I am very fond of Sylvia. But I am more grieved about you than about her." Alice colored. It was she who made no reply this time, but waited for him to continue. He went on : "You have every right to doubt my word — if you wish to. I may have given you cause. I do not know. But you will pardon my telling you frankly that you should be enough of a woman to speak out and say so candidly, and not make yourself appear unwomanly, inhuman even, by showing yourself entirely unmoved on hearing of the serious illness of a woman, who, although she has not the pleasure and honor of being a friend of yours, has frequently expressed her desire to me to become your friend." "And you dissuaded her from seeing me?" Alice sud- denly interrupted. • "Naturally." "You have the audacity to tell me that?" "You seem to construe it as an insult." "What else? A compliment?" she demanded viciously. He smiled bitterly. "I would like to accuse you of lack of delicacy, Miss Vaughn, but, losing at the game with you " He was speaking now with apparent effort — "Do you imagine how disagreeable the situation might have become for the three of us ?" Alice by this time was furious. She took no pains to disguise her anger. "And if I had lost at the game," she retorted, "I sup- pose I would not have been a fit companion for your cousin." "Pardon me," interrupted Ulrich. "You forget. I of- THE GREATER JOY 123 fered you marriage. I see no reason why my cousin and my wife should not be good friends. Nor do I see any reason why my cousin and my sweetheart should nots have been good friends. But before I had secured your affection, gained you, you understand, as one or the other, the thought of meeting you in the presence of a third person, constrained by conventionality, was quite intoler- able. ,, Alice was struck by the sincerity with which he spoke. "You are right," she said slowly. "It would have been intolerable." Having said this, she caught her breath quickly, for : she realized that he would have been justified as con- I struing them as an admission on her part. But he com- pletely ignored the lead she had unwittingly given * him. "You have made a very deep impression upon Sylvia," he continued. "The matter simply resolves itself into this. I believe you to be a good, kind-hearted girl, and I do not believe that you are capable of deliberately doing an unkind action. If you refuse to go to Sylvia's bed- side, I shall believe that you do so thinking that her ill- ness is a lie. I cannot hope to convince you of the truth of my words. All I can do is to ask you to believe me." Alice looked at him, leaning back against the mantel, the marble coldness of which chilled the heat of her head. In her blue eyes was an inflexible, steely look. He thought she was going to refuse. Instead she said sim- ply: "I will come." "Thank you." He arose. "I voluntarily promise you that while you are under my roof I will trouble you in no way." 1U THE GREATER JOY There was about him a spirit of abnegation, making him appear a stranger, making him seem inaccessible, aloof and distant. From his pocket he drew a time-table and a railroad ticket. He placed them on the table, and pushed them across to her, thus avoiding the necessity of approaching her. She perceived with growing anger every little de- tail of his attempt at self-control. "We are still in New York/' he said. "There are trains every two hours. I am leaving on the seven o'clock train. I do not suppose you will wish to take that?" The girl's eyes blazed with annoyance. She regretted having promised to go to Sylvia. His placidity annoyed her beyond measure. Seemingly, she was more agitated at meeting him again than he was. His demeanor was all decorum and ease. She forgot in the fever of the moment that while his coming had been a surprise to her, he had had time to prepare for this meeting. She remembered with a little thrill her curious tranquillity whenever he had become ardent through desire. Was she, conversely, to be plagued by passion when he, as at present, was serene and decorous? The thought so an- noyed her that she neglected to reply to his inquiry. He repeated it, using precisely the same words which had offended her before. "I do not suppose you will want to take the seven o'clock train?" "Why not?" She was aghast at her own audacity. He looked at her without speaking. His eyes flashed fire; at times they had an angry gleam. Still he con- trolled himself. Quickly she said: THE GREATER JOY 125 "You evidently do not wish me to take the same train as yourself." "Candidly, I do not," he answered abruptly. His tone betrayed no inward agitation. He was Sphinx-like in his calm immobility. Her pride alone checked the outbreak of temper which seemed imminent. "I shall be ready in time for the nine o'clock train," she said curtly. The decisive ring of her own voice gave her courage. Determination rilled her with an almost savage joy. At least she was paying him back in his own coin. Briefly, she continued: "You will, I suppose, have a carriage waiting for me ? I will also ask you to kindly see that a warm bath is ready for me when I arrive, or I shall be no good in my professional capacity after three hours on the train." She was speaking authoritatively in a tone which might have been employed toward a refractory menial, scarcely to an upper servant. She had expected him to flush, to answer her sav- agely, perhaps break out incoherently with more protes- tations of love. Perhaps she had hoped to invoke the latter. She hardly knew herself. Certainly she did not know the infinitesimal shades of character of the man she loved, and of the many weapons at his command. This time he chose sarcasm as his weapon. "Madame la Princesse has but to command," he said, bowing low, a bow so obsequious that it was an anachro- nism in any one not costumed for the genuflection. "The bath shall be ready. What temperature does her Royal Highness desire?" She had not believed him capable of submerging his gravity so completely; she had not believed him to be master of his emotions to the extent of indulging in inno- 126 THE GREATER JOY^ cent tomfoolery. His facetiousness irritated her. She became more and more angry. It was sufficiently hu- miliating to have him come for her ostensibly for Sylvia's sake, really because he wanted her himself, but it was utterly insufferable to see him so self-contained and at ease, his mind so unruffled by passion as to be able to tease her. Tease her! She tried hard to keep silent, because she felt that, in her present frame of mind, she would say something that would show him how deeply she was hurt. But the task was beyond her. The words fell from her lips : "It will not be necessary to exact a promise that you will not even try to see me while I am nursing Sylvia. iYour present indifference is a sufficient guarantee. ,, She saw him laugh. She did not hear the laughter, for she was choking back the tears that were rising. How could she so betray herself ! What a fool she was ! How he would despise her for hurling herself back at him when evidently he had all but forgotten her — had remembered her only, more likely than not, because Syl- via was ill and clamored for her and must be indulged. Her vision was blinded with the dew of unshed tears. She was trembling like an aspen leaf. Suddenly she felt that her trembling was forcibly stopped by a pair of strong arms which encircled her shoulders, and the next moment, her head resting on von Dette's shoulder, she was crying her heart out. She felt his mouth upon the nape of her neck — the same spot where he had kissed her before. His lips were voracious, seemed to eat into her flesh. He did not wait for her to finish her weeping, but bending back her head, kissed her wildly, tears and all, upon lips, eyes, cheeks, upon her neck, upon her bosom, through the thin white lingerie waist. She struggled wildly to free herself yet she was too THE GREATER JOY 127 fair-minded to blame him altogether. While she hated him for taking advantage of his opportunity, she would have hated him a hundred times more had he neglected to do so — had he allowed her to show her love without responding to it. "How can I go with you after this?" she asked pite- ously. "You have promised," he answered firmly. "Will you keep out of my way as much as possible?" she asked. "For decency's sake, while Sylvia is ill?" "For decency's sake," he assented gravely. His face was calm and reasonable. She had never before seen the look of tenderness with which he re- garded her now. "What a sweet, pure little woman you are!" he said slowly. "I'm not," she said sorrowfully, shaking her head. He smiled, and shaking a finger warningly at her, he said: "When Sylvia is well — then beware, beware!" She was unnerved, fatigued, filled with lassitude, yet she found voice to mock him : "When Sylvia is well, I shall have as little to fear as before she fell ill. I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you." He pondered that. Evidently she was piqued at some- thing. He was by no means obtuse, and after the scene he had just been through with her, it was not hard to guess that there was still unquenched a spark of jealousy, the existence of which he had not suspected. He spoke gravely, with admirable self-poise, and with a delicacy which in the case of ninety-nine women out of a hundred he would not have employed. "I thank Sylvia's illness for bringing me to your door- 128 THE GREATER JOY step so quickly," he said. "I would not have dared make overtures, or asked to see you so quickly but for this. I would have had to wait at least a month. I would have lacked the courage to approach you before." "Then you must care more for Sylvia than for me," she chided him gently. "You dared do for her what you would not have dared do for me." He assumed an excessively virtuous air. "I dared appeal to the spiritual side of your charac- ter," he said. "I dared ask your assistance where I would not so soon have dared appeal to the emotional side of yourself." She sat still, by no means convinced, still feeling a lit- tle pang of jealousy, not believing him absolutely, not mistrusting him wholly; yet admiring him whole heart- edly. Rising to go, he took a preliminary constitutional across the room. "Tell me, Alice," he said. "Has it occurred to you that after all I may be faking — Sylvia's illness I mean — to get you into my power?" There was in his voice neither passion nor desire, merely a craving to under- stand her woman's mind. She answered as directly, feeling as if she were committing herself more than she had yet done, more even than when she had sub- mitted to his violent caresses a moment before. "You would not resort to such means. They are beneath you. You shall win me, any woman, on your own merit, or not at all. You are very sure of yourself. Perhaps, also, you do not care sufficiently for any par- ticular woman — one woman being quite as good as an- other," she added with bitter playfulness. He laughed delightedly to think she had remembered the poisoned shaft he had once directed to her heart. THE GREATER JOY 129 He came back to her, and half kneeling beside her on the couch in which she was sitting, with the manner bred of intimacy, said: "This one particular woman is worth every effort. You must have known right along, Alice, that I merely sought to torment you that last day. And I am not at all sure that if I were to fail at winning you on my own merits, I would not resort to foul means." He added gravely, "I have considered kidnapping." "Kidnapping?" she started. She flushed crimson. Had he read her thoughts? "Kidnapping," he said. "Would you hate me very much if I did? Of course you will say 'yes/ that you would hate me" — he paused tantalizingly. Her blood sang in her veins. She remembered a wild dream she had had several nights before, remembered how, in that malignant dream, she had completely yielded herself to him. Her color deepened. He had never seen her blush so deeply before, and the deep rose-red of her cheeks gave her a strange, hectic, unnatural ap- pearance, as if she had painted herself, or had inadvert- ently brushed her face against some adhesive coloring matter. He saw her agitation and misunderstood it. He be- lieved that he had blundered. "I must be more careful in the future," he muttered to himself. He was con- vinced he had outraged her sense of propriety or over- taxed her craving for the romantic. "I must respect her innocence," he said to himself, "her youth, her inno- cence and her nationality. Americans are likely to be strait-laced, unromantic." She had run away from him once because of his brutal, European manner of press- ing his suit. He would take good care not to send her scurrying away from him again. 130 THE GREATER JOY "I shall wait until the nine o'clock train and go down with you," he said, "that is, unless you insist on my go- ing ahead, so that the courier may order the royal bath." She smiled at this repetition of his sarcasm. "Why this change of plan?" she demanded. He shrugged his shoulders. "What a child!" he laughed. "Before, at a distance, unkissed, unapproachable, in bad odor, could I have sat opposite to you for three miserable hours and talked platitudes and appeared at ease? Now, forgiven, it is very different. You have been in my arms, and shall be in my arms again." A danger signal in her face caused him to add hastily, "after Sylvia is better." "I would not be too sure," she said. "I am quite sure," he said, "that you will ultimately consent to be my wife." She noted with pleasure the change of mental attitude that made him now present her future wifehood as a positive, not an optional, contingency. In the train she begged him to acquaint her minutely with Sylvia's illness. Sylvia was down with typhoid, and Ulrich told her all she wanted to know. He was again amazed at the thoroughness of her medical knowl- edge as evinced by the questions she put to him. When, after they had reached the house on Riverside Drive, she left him to go to her room, which was di- rectly above his, he sat down to think matters over. De- cidedly, he mused, she had as many facets as a finely-cut diamond. It was unthinkable that he could not ulti- mately win her. He would make every sacrifice. What did he care for the succession after all? What was the remote possibility of some day occupying the throne compared to obtaining such a jewel, such a peerless, flaw- less jewel as this girl ? He would be able to devote him- THE GREATER JOY 131 self wholly to medicine. His mind wandered on; his vision projected the future. She would be an ideal wife for him. He remembered Bacon's pithy remarks of what a wife should be — mistress in a man's youth, companion in middle life, nurse in old age. This pale, sweet girl would be all that, and much more! "How I love her, how I love her!" He buried his face in his hands. Alice, in the room above his, was moving about. He heard her shoes fall upon the floor — heard her move the chair, shift the bed — heard the bed creak. His ecstatic mood vanished, swept away as by a hur- ricane. His blood became turbulent. It was impossible for him to remain in his room, so near her, with only the ceiling between them, to hear her move about, in the stillness of the night, to know that her pure, sweet, white body was stretched at full length upon the bed. Springing from his chair, he hurried from the room. Two steps at a time, as if pursued by the Furies, he ran down to the lower floor, and into his library. He took down a volume on medicines, and sought to give his undivided attention to the book. But his hand trem- bled so that he could not hold the volume steadily. He read words, read them out loud, making a terrible effort to understand them, but his vision was blurred, his brain seemed a furnace, his body was enveloped in flames ; the air in the room seemed to beat upon him as a hammer. The thought came to him to leave the house, to call for a cab, to seek out elsewhere what was denied him here. But a revulsion of feeling followed. He wondered at himself. He was amazed at the change that had been wrought in him by this white-faced, pale-haired girl. A month ago he would have thought nothing of such an exploit. Now it occurred to him that contact with any 132 THE GREATER JOY other woman would be indescribably revolting, disgust- ing, a loathsome thing. He had never been faithful to any woman ; the thought had never as much as occurred to him. If anyone had suggested it he would have laughed it to scorn as quixotic, absurd, impossible. Now it seemed to him that to enter upon a liaison — even a temporary one — with any other woman would be to rub the bloom off his attachment for Alice ; that he would be debasing her by accepting a substitute in any one of the many relations in which she would stand to him — that he would be robbing her in some occult way, if he were to take into his arms some other woman. There was only one thing to do — to suffer. A certain exultation descended upon him. Bitter and cruel as was this suffering, it was an unbelievably sweet thing that was happening to him — to him, the seasoned, cynical, callous man of the world. For the first time in his life he regretted his past life. It had always been his contention that a man must live a man's life before marrying — should know all there is to be known — the depths and the heights. But now, as he kept his lonely, painful vigil through the small hours of the morning, he realized poignantly that heretofore he had known the depths only — never the heights — that the intoxication this or that woman had afforded him in the past had been ephemeral merely, satisfying the senses, but never warming the heart or inspiring the spirit to unwonted flights. He wished that he might have been able to offer Alice a body as undefiled as her own. He almost desired that he might have an unsophisticated mind to offer her as well, ignorant of all the horrible wisdom such as the Tree of Knowledge imparts. He rejoiced to think that in Alice he would win a THE GREATER JOY 133 woman who would restrain the brutality of his own lower nature. He desired to restrain his sensuality, to win her only gradually as she gave herself. He rejoiced that she had the power to spiritualize his passion. So keen was his exaltation, that for the hour he forgot his favor- ite axiom, "When in man a desire for moral reform sets in, mental disintegration begins." Dawn crept slowly out of the ebon embrace of night, suffusing the sky with rosy pink. Ulrich gazed out over the river through the open window. An enormous peace descended upon him. He felt his passion subsiding. As if in prayer, he folded his hands, resting his chin on his fingers. How he loved her ! How he loved her ! Without he heard her footsteps. They were muffled, hushed, distant ; now they pattered on the marble of the tiled hall, now they were extinguished by the heavy Ax- minster rugs which lay upon the hall-floor. Gradually she came nearer. He went to the door and bade her good-morning. CHAPTER VIII There was attached to the von Dette household a stout, middle-aged, supercilious and very important woman by the name of von Schwellenberg. Miss Smith, the trained nurse, who had attended Sylvia alone before Alice came, declared that Frau von Schwellenberg was the bane of her life. It appeared she had ordered Miss Smith about as if she were a servant. Miss Smith cer- tainly was not a servant. No trained nurse would sub- mit to be treated as if she were a servant. This and more Miss Smith confided to Alice in the first half hour of their acquaintance, and indeed, the young girl had only to see the two together to perceive that Miss Smith's charge was well-founded. She anticipated similar treat- ment at Frau von Schwellenberg' s hands, and wondered just what she would do or say if the German "meal-bag," Miss Smith's irreverent designation for the fat little lady, ordered her to carry in the warm water for Sylvia's sponge bath, instead of allowing the maid to take it in, which, it appeared, was the outrage committed by Miss Smith. On the morning of Alice's advent the housemaid came to the door of Sylvia's apartment with the hot water. She was an Irish girl, and in a very strong brogue re- quested Alice to come to the door for the pitcher, as the "fat old woman" did not permit her to enter. Alice turned to Frau von Schwellenberg with a question in her eyes. "My dear young lady," said the meal-bag, "just look 134 THE GREATER JOY 135 at that girl. The etiquette of a self-respecting Court would not permit such a servant to enter the room of the Princess." "I see," said Alice, contriving to get her hands smeared with some ointment. "You must take it from her," continued Frau von Schwellenberg pleasantly. "Then I do not contaminate?" "Du lieber Gott in Himmel, no." The von Schwellenberg was all honey and cloves. "Then," said Alice calmly, "I suppose you don't either. Will you take it from her? My hands are very dirty just now, as you can see." Von Schwellenberg glared. She was frightful to look upon when she glared. She bade the housemaid put down the pitcher and go. Alice, fussing about to kill time, watched out of a corner of her eye. She saw the fat old lady wobble to a wash-basin, take a piece of soap, work it to a lather on an old wash-rag, and with this lather scrub the handle of the pitcher, where the house- maid had touched it. Then she rinsed the handle. Dry- ing it carefully, and puffing and panting from the un- wonted exertion of bending for so long a time, for the pitcher had remained on the floor, she carried it into the room. When Alice uncovered Sylvia to give her her sponge- bath, the von Schwellenberg again interrupted. "Pardon me," she said, "etiquette prescribes that be- fore any liberty is taken with the person of a Royal Highness, these words must be spoken, "If your High- ness permits." "But she is unconscious," the nurse remonstrated. " 'She V My dear young lady, you mean to say 'Her Highness' is unconscious." 136 THE GREATER JOY The fat old woman looked very much like a strutting hen as she uttered the last words. Alice laughed. She felt an ungodly desire to shock this clumsy, tradition-ridden old creature. "Life is too short," she said flippantly, as she began preparations upon Sylvia's prostrate and unconscious body. "But I haven't the least objection if you will stay near me and pronounce the phrases prescribed by the etiquette of your Court. I suppose it doesn't really mat- ter who says them," she concluded innocently, "so long as they're spoken at the right time, like the answers of the congregation to the minister in the Episcopal serv- ice." The von Schwellenberg glared again. Also she bris- tled, bristled so perceptibly that her very clothes seemed to grow stiff and hard. "I shall have to submit this to Prince Ulrich," she said. Then, a little vindictively, "I do not mind telling you that His Highness has instructed me to show you the greatest consideration, the greatest respect — yes, respect — but that does not imply, I suppose, that I am to tol- erate your refusing the respect you owe the Princess." "By all means," said Alice "confer with His Highness." His Highness apparently had nothing particular to say in the matter, for the von Schwellenberg never referred to court etiquette again. But one day, in her usual sac- charine way, she said, apropos of nothing in particular, "His Highness seems very partial to you." Henceforward she treated the new nurse with every consideration. Ignorant as Alice was of foreign ways, she could not but notice the deference paid to her by all the European servants, and Ulrich and Sylvia had brought quite a retinue with them. The von Schwellen- berg also deigned to chat familiarly with Alice when- THE GREATER JOT 137 ever there was time, and one day, when the young girl picked up the photograph of a young man in the uni- form of a Black Hussar, who resembled Ulrich amaz- ingly, the "meal-bag" volunteered the information, "That is Prince Gunther." "Prince Gunther?" echoed Alice. Sylvia when deliri- ous had frequently called upon Gunther. Old Schwellenberg looked wise. "He and the Princess are in love." "Is he also a von Dette?" "Yes, he is another cousin, a grandson of the old King's brother." Alice put down the photograph. "But she will not marry him," the von Schwellenberg continued, "Princess Sylvia has one fault — she is inordi- nately ambitious. She hopes Prince Eitel Egon, the Erb- prins, will die — yes, yes, she does wish it — do not look so startled — and then she wants Prince Ulrich, who is next in succession, to marry her. Everybody knows it." Alice feigned indifference, but she had the strange sen- sation of having been told all this for a purpose. What ulterior object could the old lady-in-waiting have had in repeating this gossip? Her face turned crimson. She wanted to ask what view Prince Ulrich took of the matter, but she felt it was impossible to discuss him with a third person. Besides, had he not told her that a marriage between himself and Sylvia was not to be thought of ? One morning, at about four o'clock, Alice was awak- ened by a noise which she could not understand. Hur- riedly slipping on a wrapper, she ran down to Sylvia's room to see if anything was amiss. She found Miss Smith, who had the night-watch, dozing lightly in a chair near Sylvia's bed. She was wide awake in a moment. 138 THE GREATER JOY —— — ^— ^— ■^ — — ^— — ^^^^^»»— No, she had heard nothing. The Princess had slept quietly all night. Alice waited a moment to hear whether there would be a repetition of the sound, but the house was still as a tomb, and after five minutes, Alice crept upstairs silently to her own room. On entering it she immediately became aware of an- other presence, and she was aware that a candle had been snuffed at that very moment. For one instant her heart stood still with fear. Who was in the room ? Her first impulse was to cry out, but thought of the patient was second nature to the trained nurse, and she checked the cry that had half risen to her lips. Was it a burg- lar ? Some occult sense told her it was not a thief, and her heart began palpitating wildly as the thought flashed upon her that it might be Ulrich. Would he so far for- get all the instincts of the gentleman ? She did not know. His eyes had flashed fire the previous day on encounter- ing her unexpectedly. Had he entered her room hoping to surprise and frighten her into acquiescence? She could not believe it. "Who is it?" she demanded faintly. There was no reply, and she repeated the question more vigorously. Again she received no answer. Her pulse began to throb tumultously. She was terrified. She could not be- lieve Ulrich would dare to do this, and yet she was al- most certain it was he. For one moment the power of speech seemed to leave her. Then weakly, not realizing at all what a very unwise thing she was saying, she called out: "Ulrich, is it you?" The answer came : "It is I, Freiherrin von Schwellen- berg." The blood rushed back to Alice's face. In a flash she realized into what a horribly compromising position her THE GREATER JOY 139 mention of Ulrich's name had placed her. What a fool she was in thus allowing herself to be trapped. For trap she was sure it was. The "meal-bag," who in deshabille doubly and trebly deserved the name, struck a match and lit the candle which she herself had brought into the room. "May I inquire how you came into my room at this hour?" demanded Alice, trembling with anger. "I heard a sound. Du lieber Gott in Himmel, how pale you are! Come, sit down." She drew forward a chair, but Alice refused it with an imperious gesture of the hand. "Close the door," she said briefly. "The entire house need not be awakened by your explanation." The von Schwellenberg gave the girl a quick, search- ing look and closed the door. "I heard a sound," she began again. "I went into the hall and listened. As you know, my room is opposite to yours. I heard some one going downstairs. I did not dare strike a match, thinking it a burglar, but when you got to the landing I recognized you." She stopped. "Continue, if you please," said Alice coldly. "I went back to my room. I listened for you to re- turn. I feared you might be ill. I thought I heard you come upstairs. I called into your room in a whisper to ask if I could be of service and received no reply. So I walked in." She smiled bovinely.as she uttered the last words. Alice realized that this was no moment for cowardly prudence, and that, to save herself as far as she could in this woman's eyes, she must take the bull by the horns. "You are quite sure," she said icily, "that you did not think I had gone downstairs on a very different mission 140 THE GREATER JOY i — that I had gone downstairs to spend the remainder of the night in the room directly under mine. ,, "Du lieber Gott in Himmell" The fat old lady ripped out her favorite expletive. Comic dismay was painted on her fat countenance, and rouge being absent, she presented a ludicrously torpid ap- pearance. She was an enormous woman.. She was dressed in a thin muslin night-gown that reached only to her knees. Her feet were thrust into bathing slip- pers, and her fat, veined legs were bare. She had wound a thin India silk shawl about her hips — one could not guess whether for warmth or vanity. Altogether she was as ludicrous a spectacle as anyone would want to see. "Will you not at least permit me to sit down?" she asked, throwing back her head with a gesture she used when using her lorgnette. She was the grande dame very suddenly, in spite of her ridiculous attire. "I am an old woman," she went on with something like pride, "and it is difficult for me to stand when not laced up." Alice pushed a chair over to her. "You have never before asked my permission to sit," remarked the young girl with a serenity which equalled the placid temper of her visitor. "I cannot guess why you do it now." By this time she was sufficiently familiar with that bugbear, court etiquette, to realize that the sudden as- sumption of humility by this woman, whose rank was high, boded something portentous. The von Schwellenberg did not reply. Alice, clad in a pink silk kimono, which, being too short, revealed her bare limbs as shamelessly as her visitor's, was seated on THE GREATER JOY 141 the bed. From this point of vantage, bowing as cere- moniously as if she had been in full ball regalia, she said politely: "You have not yet informed me of the reason of your change of front." The old lady became excited at last. "Mon Dieu!" she cried, "what are you quarrelling about, meine Gnaedigste? Naturally I will not sit down without permission in the presence of a young lady who enjoys the distinction of calling His Royal Highness by his first name." There was no malice in old Schwellenberg's voice as she made this statement, only a look of singular defer- ence, almost of homage. Alice felt a strong inclination to laugh. To be respected by this fat, etiquette-crazy old woman because she suspected that Ulrich was her lover ! Again in thought she had used his first name, and in- stantly aware of it, she became intolerably nervous. At all hazards she must clear her reputation. So far she was innocent, and she would remain so. Quietly she said: "You will have to believe me when I tell you I have no right to call His Highness by his first name." "But you will have soon," said von Schwellenberg consolingly. Nodding her head vigorously, she went on, "I am quite certain of that. He is much in love with you. Sehr verliebt. Ach was! I knew it the first time I saw him in the same room with you. A blind man could have seen it, and I am a woman with very good eyesight. He is crazy about you. If you have not yet won him, you must not despair." Alice smiled in spite of herself. The viewpoint was so absurdly preposterous. 142 THE GREATER JOY "I assure you, Frau von Schwellenberg, I have no de- sire to win the Prince or any other man." "That I believe ; you are a good woman, but he has a desire to make you love him. He will succeed. Ulrich von Dette is not a man to sigh in vain." She herself sighed most tragically. Alice's conscience pricked her. It was horrible to think that she actually had an inclination to do the very thing with which von Schwellenberg charged her. She replied determinedly: "He will not succeed." She was very nervous, because she was uncertain of the truth of her words. The night air was chill. She shivered. "What then will you do?" The old woman's voice was rasping, exacting. "You are very beautiful; your mirror tells you that. Rather than have a royal lover, will you marry some odious business man whom you happen to nurse through some sickness? Ach was! You do not know what it means to be a royal favorite ! You will be envied by everyone. Everyone will bow to you, men and women of rank, ministers of state, princes of the blood even. You will be created a Baroness or a Frei- frau or something to enable you to appear at Court and to take precedence of other women of the old nobility but of lower rank. Ach, mein Gott! what can I say to con- vince you not to throw away the good fortune which is offered you?" Alice was turning hot and cold by turns. She sought refuge in sarcasm. "If all the favorites of royalty are still given titles," she said, "I wonder that the Almanach de Gotha is not twice as long as it is." "You are witty," said von Schwellenberg. "I did not THE GREATER JOY 143 speak of the vermin, the Gesindel, women whose trade is that of the courtesan. I speak of women like you, women of beauty, of intellect, of presence, of personal- ity — mein Gott! what a personality you have — you who made old Freifrau von Schwellenberg perform a menial's work! Never shall I forget that I carried the hot water for you!" Alice laughed. The von Schwellenberg looked so preposterous in her short muslin night-dress, and bare, blue-veined legs; the entire scene was so bizarre that she could not suppress her sense of humor. "Think it over carefully," continued the old lady-in- waiting. "Do not say 'no' too quickly. Even if you do not care for him very much." "But I do." The words seemed to leap out of the young girl's mouth. She was half frantic with the torture the con- versation was inflicting. "You care for him?" stammered Frau von Schwel- lenberg. The girl became reckless. "I am mad for him," she cried. The panther, or the tiger, or whatever other name one chose to give the animal that had lain dormant in her so long, struggled rampantly into life. She thought that those who see madness approaching, see it and cannot escape, must feel as she was feeling. "You are mad for him?" old von Schwellenberg re- peated. "And you think of refusing him? You are joking. Surely, you do not expect him to marry you?" And before Alice could disavow her intention of cap- turing Prince Ulrich in marriage, the old woman, who had become terribly agitated, continued: "Marriage would be so foolish for both of you. At 144 THE GREATER JOY present he is the great man in Hohenhoff-Hohe. The old King has been controlled by him for years. He will be the Regent of the young King when the old King is dead. If he marries you regularly, he will not be Regent. He will be what we call a zero — eine Null — nothing. It would be too cruel." Quickly the girl said: "I love him too dearly to want him to marry me. I am not thinking of myself. I am thinking of him." "Ach Gott!" cried the von Schwellenberg, "wie ro- mantisch!" She sighed. "You are charming, Miss Vaughn! You are wonderful! Ah, what life you will inject into our selfish, phlegmatic little Court! An un- selfish favorite! It has never been. You will achieve the impossible. You must accept ! You must !" Alice felt she must terminate the conversation. She felt ill and nauseated from sheer nervousness. "Freiherrin," she said, "I beg of you to discontinue this conversation." The old woman arose and hobbled to the door. "I am going," she said. "Only one word more. Count on old von Schwellenberg as your most devoted servant and friend. Command me when and how you will and rely on my discretion." Attempting a deferential bow, which Alice, blinded with tears, did not even see, she left the room. CHAPTER IX Ulrich certainly behaved admirably all through Syl- ria's illness. But such is the inconsistency of human iture, that Alice was both irritated and annoyed be- cause he faithfully held to the conduct she herself had prescribed for him. He made no attempt to see her pri- vately. If she entered a room in which he happened to be, he attempted no conversation, held open the door for her so she could majestically walk forth, treated her with the most marked courtesy. His conduct caused her to speculate on his motives. !At first she was pleased ; a few days later she was an- noyed ; still later, she believed he meant to pique her into giving him some lead. Finally she concluded that see- ing her in daily close proximity had disillusioned him and that he did not intend to renew his wooing. If she had been madly in love with him before, now her passion became a tempest, a perfect hurricane that swept over her at mere thought of him. She was more dazzled than ever by his perfect courtesy, which he had never before displayed so conspicuously. Von Schwel- lenberg's words also had not failed of their effect. Her patient was already convalescent when one even- ing in the dim twilight of the hall she and Ulrich col- lided. He caught her from slipping on the marble floor, but instead of releasing her, encircled her waist with his arm. In the semi-darkness his eyes appeared luminous, almost like the quick glints of light that glimmer on flowing water in the moonlight. 145 140 THE GREATER JOY "Don't, don't !" she murmured vaguely, faint from the sudden encounter, the unexpected contact with his hands, his breath, his skin. "Haven't I behaved well?" he whispered ardently. "Am I not to get my reward at last? Let me kiss you, please." "No, no," she murmured, feeling his kisses would be intolerable. She lowered her head, threw it from one side to the other to escape his mouth, which was greedy, voracious, half open, like the mouth of a child eagerly expecting a visible yet delayed sweetmeat. He laughed and spoke in a low, caressing voice. "I will hold you until you surrender with good grace." "No, no, Ulrich ! Some one will see us." "Never mind, Sweetheart." His white teeth flashed like the petal of a magnolia blossom. "I do not mind your compromising me in the least." Alice laughed. He had waited for this. He stooped quickly and crushed his lips against hers, holding her head with one hand so she could not escape him. Never before had he held her so firmly, never before had she experienced such rapture at being encircled by his arms. He released her at last, but not before he had whis- pered : "When, Alice? When?" "Never, never!" she said determinedly. "You must realize that you cannot give yourself one moment, as you have given yourself just now, and refuse yourself the next moment," he protested. "I did not yield myself. But you — oh, you're a cy- clone!" "Very well. Then you mean you yield only to cyclones and similar convulsions of nature?" There was a menace in his tone that frightened her. THE GREATER JOY 147 "I didn't mean that," she said fearfully. Bending over her, he whispered ardently: "You cannot escape me. If you wish to prolong the chase a little longer, very well. But you will be mine sooner or later." Then stepping aside and bowing, he added : "I will not detain you longer." The next instant she was alone. After this Alice real- ized that she must either leave the von Dette household without an explanation, or meet the issue squarely. Her sleep became troubled; she lost her appetite; a nervous unrest possessed her. And judging from the deep hol- lows under his eyes, she knew it must be the same with Ulrich. Sylvia was rapidly regaining her health. She had taken a great fancy to Alice and treated her more as a friend than as a nurse. She insisted in calling her by her first name, and on Alice's reciprocating. One day she asked her whether she would be willing to go abroad with her. "If you do not care to come as my avowed com- panion," she said, "I hope you will at least pay us a good long visit this winter at Hohen. Hohen is our Resident, our capital, you know, and I can promise you our Court is as lively during the season as any in Europe. Alice thanked her, but declined the invitation. Sylvia became pressing, even urgent, and positively refused to take a final "no." When the nurse left the room for a few moments to prepare a milk punch, old von Schvvel- lenberg took advantage of her absence to say : "Princess, surely it cannot be your intention to get Prince Ulrich to marry this girl, charming though she be ! I implore you to consider the honor of your name, of your race, and not to sacrifice it to your own am- bitions." 148 THE GREATER JOY "Dear old Schwellie," replied the princess with a sig- nificant smile, "Don't you think I have as much regard for the honor of our house as you have ?" Von Schwellenberg grumbled. "As for marriage," the princess continued lightly, "I am afraid the redoubtable Ulrich will marry no one, not even me." At that moment Alice reentered, and Frau von Schwel- lenberg, snorting and furious because of the snub she had received, left the room. Still very weak, Sylvia asked Alice to let her rest her head on her shoulder until she fell asleep. Twilight was rapidly falling. The room was perfectly quiet with the heavy stillness peculiar to large houses in aristocratic neighborhoods. There was something op- pressive, even unhealthy, in the unnatural peace. There was not a fly, not a mosquito to disturb the ear, only the distant rumbling of a wagon or the rapid chug-chug of a far-away automobile suggested the busy life of the big city. The flowers, which had been fresh and sweet in the morning, were already beginning to decay. A strange, tropical, morbid odor emanated from them, making the air in the room stifling, thick, unclean. Sylvia was asleep at last, and Alice, still holding her, was drowsy from the stillness and the heat of the room. Suddenly she became wide and painfully awake. It seemed to her that it was not Sylvia's head that was rest- ing upon her shoulder, upon her bosom, but Ulrich's. They were alone; it was night. She slid Sylvia's head upon the pillow and noiselessly crept from the room. Outside, panting, choking, she stood half fainting, muttering to herself, "It cannot go on like this. I must meet him squarely. But how will it end?" CHAPTER X Again they met in the hall — accidentally. The door to his study was open. He had just lit a small red lamp which he burned all evening, whether he was in the room or not. He looked at her keenly, and without making an effort to kiss her, as she expected, he said : "I would like to have a talk with you. Will you come into the library?" She made no reply, but followed him. A certain sanc- tity seemed to envelop him. Never before had he ap- peared so reserved, never before had she perceived such an undercurrent of tenderness as now appeared in his attitude. But she did not know, perhaps he did not know himself, that his manner was a superb piece of un- conscious acting. He had never been less sincere or less genuine with her. Everything he was about to say had been carefully premeditated. "You must realize," he began gravely "that things cannot go on as at present. It is not necessary to par- ticularize, but you must realize that I have endured tor- ture during the past few weeks." She did not answer, but he perceived that she was trembling from head to foot, not violently, but as if wave upon wave of emotion were traversing her. She was still standing, supporting herself against the mantel. kHe drew up a chair. "You had better sit down," he said; "we have a long talk before us." 150 THE GREATER JOY She obeyed him mechanically, and he perceived that she was not thinking of him, but of something else, pos- sibly of something he had said. He would like to have known what was agitating her so profoundly. The ex- alted mood in which he had found himself on the evening of her arrival had completely passed. Even his desire not to be faithless to her had assumed the complexion of mere hedonism, seemed merely to proceed from a wish not to blunt his joy in her. His favorite axiom, "When a desire for moral reform begins, mental disin- tegration sets in," again had his endorsement. Lust of conquest was uppermost. He was determined not to lose her. If she was to be gained in no other way, he had ultimately and finally decided to marry her. But he felt that if he lacked the wit to gain her without marriage, that if his brain pitted against hers were to prove the less clever of the two, he would never be able to take full delight in his possession of her, for he was keen enough to know that it must be a case of brain con- quering brain, and not senses subjugating senses, if he desired to hold her. And that realization stung him into putting forth every effort to win her. Like a lawyer about to argue his case in court, he had carefully prepared himself. He had rehearsed the facts and arguments to be presented to her. Like all good ex- tempore speakers, he preferred to rely upon the inspira- tion of the moment for selecting the most formidable and adequate raiment in which to clothe his arguments, for to him arguments were like human beings, the impres- sion they made depended largely on their style. "Alice," he said, "don't you realize that you must be fair with me, and give me a definite answer?" She looked at him questioningly. Before she spoke, THE GREATER JOY 151 he knew what she was going to say, and he quailed. He had not expected she would dare to be so direct. "Before I can answer you, Ulrich, I must know what you are asking me. You ask me to be fair with you; then be honest with me ; what are you asking me to be — your wife, or " "I have told you, Alice, not once, but a dozen of times, that if you have an insuperable aversion to living with me as my sweetheart, I will marry you. But marriage would mean the giving up of many advantages to which my rank entitles me, and in which you would participate. I am not thinking only of myself in preferring that we should be lovers instead of man and wife. I have ex- plained to you what a morganatic marriage is. I will not marry you that way. It must either be a full and regular marriage, which would mean that I must re- nounce my rights to the succession, or — the other. It is for you to say which." Nervously she laced and interlaced her fingers. Slowly she answered : "I will not accept your sacrificing everything for me," she said at last, "nor can I consent to — to — the other way." "It will have to be one or the other, I will not give you up. Make up your mind to that. You will not leave this room until I have your answer. If you say that I must make the sacrifice, well and good, I will make it. I do not deny it will be hard on me, for I love my beautiful country very dearly; I am proud of my rank and all it means ; I have been brought up to believe that high rank carries with it high obligations, which in my case, as Prince Regent, during my cousin's minority, I shall be called upon to discharge in the near future. I am placed in a very unfortunate position; I must either 152 THE GREATER JOY be renegade in my duty to my country, or in my duty to the woman I love. But I will not give you up. If your Puritan blood makes it impossible for you to come to me without marriage, then I will have to be a renegade to my country. But you I must have, Alice. Answer me, which is it to be?" "I cannot decide," she said in a low tone. She was trembling from head to foot. "I cannot decide," she re- peated. "Ulrich, I will leave the decision to you. I trust you. Whatever you say I will do." "No, Alice, I cannot do that. If I were to decide against marriage, and I am frank in saying that my in- clination lies that way, you might later on reproach me, or worse still, you might feel a resentment against me without voicing it, thinking that I had taken advantage of your innocence. All I can do is this. I can ask you to make this great sacrifice for me. You say you trust me. You will never regret doing that, Alice. I shall prove myself worthy of your faith. Well?" She did not answer, but sat looking at him with large, frightened eyes. He saw how miserably she was suffer- ing, and he pitied her. His self-possession almost melted away under the look of those innocent, trusting blue eyes. "Well?" he asked again. "You must think me very weak, Ulrich. I do not want you to shirk your duty on my account, but I have been brought up to consider what you are asking me to con- template as the cardinal sin. I have been brought up to believe that it is worse than thievery, more degrading than murder. Oh, Ulrich, I cannot decide. I am so very, very miserable." The tears stood in her eyes. "If you cannot take a different viewpoint of it," he said, "I certainly would not consent to your sacrificing THE GREATER JOY 153 yourself. I certainly would not wish you to feel that you were degrading yourself on my account. There is much work waiting for me in Hohenhof-Hohe. But let the poor continue to go unfed, let the schools continue to be inadequate and insufficient — what does it matter to you and me? We shall marry, Alice, and be selfishly happy, and not think of the thousands of persons whom we have sacrificed so that we may be happy." "No, no, Ulrich," she cried piteously. "I cannot, I will not let you fail in your duty to your country like that." With sudden passion, he went on: "Don't you see, dear, that it is the feeling that binds heart to heart which lowers or exalts us, and not the miserable little fact whether the marriage ceremony had been performed or not? I love you, I adore you; no marriage ceremony, no civil or religious marriage, could make you more my own than if you come to me this way. Before God, Alice, you would be my wife!" "Why do you say before God?" she interrupted. "You should at least be sincere with me, and you are not sincere when you speak of God. You do not be- lieve in God." Too clever to waste energy in futile denial, Ulrich con- tinued suavely: "When anyone who no longer believes in the Deity uses the word 'God/ it is neither a mark of insincerity nor a reverting to type. Rather is the word employed as a metaphor. It is imagery of a sublime sort. The word is used to summarize all the finer, spiritual forces in us." She was struck by the reply as he could see. As he had invented the retort on the spur of the moment, he felt all the pride of the creative artist. 154* THE GREATER JOY But so far he had not progressed a single step nearer his goal. He was wondering in what way it would be best to proceed, when she burst out : "Oh, Ulrich, do you not realize what a coward I am? Why don't you do something desperate, and put an end to our misery?" It was the first time she had acknowledged her own condition of mind. Quick to see his advantage, he said : "I have done nothing desperate because I would not as much as kiss you, unless I knew you were willing. I love you, and I desire your love and esteem, not your fear and contempt. I believe I love you a great deal more than you love me." Alarmed by his tone of certainty, she looked up at him anxiously. He continued boldly, knowing he was stak- ing all upon this last card. "Yes — I love you more than you love me. I have re- peatedly offered to make the great sacrifice for you — to marry you. But you are not willing to make the great sacrifice for me, of living with me without being my wife." The words stung every fibre of her woman's pride. "I don't ask you to make a sacrifice," she retorted quickly. "I would not accept your name, would not be willing to bear it, if it is such a sacrifice to give it to me." He had partly foreseen her anger. It was part of his plan. "Alice," he said in a mildly reproachful tone, "you are very unreasonable. We are extraordinarily situated, you and I. One of us must make a sacrifice, either I of my rank and of its appanages, or you of your — how shall I designate it? — foolish notions concerning virtue. You are not willing to make the sacrifice, yet permit me to THE GREATER JOY 155 point out to you that your sacrifice is an intangible one, concerning itself merely as it does with feelings and be- liefs, while mine is a renunciation of very palpable ad- vantages. If you were willing to make the sacrifice for me, I would accept it, because it is my honest conviction that my retention of the advantages which I enjoy, thanks to my exalted birth, will make life more radiantly beautiful not only for me, but for you as well. And if you had given me the chance to accept your sacrifice, I would have thanked you from the bottom of my heart and cheerfully acknowledged my indebtedness to you, for I fully realize that although your notions seem obso- lete and a trifle foolish, yet to you they appear to be the very cloth of gold and ermine in which your soul is robed. But it seems to be decreed that I, and not you, are to make the sacrifice, and I will gladly, willingly and cheerfully make it. Nor, since it offends you, shall I ever refer to it again. And now that the matter is set- tled, let us say no more about it, dearest." She had left her chair, as he began unfolding his diabolical casuistry, and had seated herself in a remote corner of the room as if to escape from his immediate proximity. He could see, as he watched her furtively, that his words were not merely sinking deep into her soul, but were lacerating her very flesh. She not merely heard him speak — she felt his words. When he stopped speaking, she arose and walked straight to him. By the look in her face he knew that victory was his. She was aglow and afire with the flame of her renunciation. "Ulrich, Ulrich," she said in a low, passionate voice, putting both her arms about his neck. It was the first time she had ever offered him a caress, and a tremor of pride, of exultation swept through him. 156 THE GREATER JOY "I shall not accept your sacrifice. The sacrifice shall be mine. I have been selfish, heartless, stupid. I did not understand you, dear. I see it all so plainly now. For- give me — and take me!" He passed his arm about her waist, and at the same tnoment she buried her face against his shoulder. Now, in the moment of his supreme triumph, a feeling of inexpressible alarm came over him. As he held her, her one arm still clinging about his neck, it seemed to him that the future was unrolled before him. He felt a foreboding that he would never be able to disentangle himself from the silken web he himself had helped weave. He almost regretted his triumph. And yet he had been determined to marry her, failing to win her otherwise. But marriage, he felt in some indeterminate, unanalyzed way, would not have bound him to her so inviolably, so ruthlessly as he was being bound because she was yield- ing herself. She was doubtless waiting for him to kiss her ; she had a right to expect it. He put his lips upon the nape of her neck, and at contact with the soft, cool flesh, all his love for her came pulsing back, sweeping before it every other consideration. "Alice, Alice!" She lifted her head from his shoulder, and of one ac- cord they went to the couch and sat down upon it, to- gether, side by side. "You will not regret it, Alice?" "No, Ulrich." "You are quite sure ?" "I am glad it is settled. Don't let us discuss it any more. I am so weary of all this talk." "Very well, dear. Where shall we spend our honey- moon?" Her eyes dropped. THE GREATER JOY 157 "Wherever you wish, Ulrich," she said in a soft, low, voice. "Mountains or seashore?" "Is it quite immaterial to you?" "Quite. I wish you to choose." "Let us go to the mountains. Don't you love the lofty serenity, Ulrich, of the mountain atmosphere? And the wonderful sunsets that last for almost two hours in midsummer ?" "Very well, dear, I know of a beautiful place. I hope I can get it. I shall telegraph to-night. ' Her eyes met his with an inquiry. He bent forward and whispered : "Sylvia sails a week from yesterday, at five in the morning. I shall manage to sprain my ankle, so that at the last moment she will have to sail alone. You will see her off the night before. We will start early the next morning, which will give us ample time to motor all the way. The roads are splendid. We shall reach our des- tination by five in the afternoon." She smiled, and without speaking, kissed him on the lips. Then she leaned he** head against his shoulder. Suddenly she said: "Ulrich, you are not as happy as I am. Why not ?" "You are happier because you are making the sacri- fice." He spoke the first words that came into his head, but after he had spoken it occurred to him that there was a good deal of truth, and not only of truth but of sin- cerity, in his words. Nervousness swept over him again in a torrential wave. Never again would he be the same cynical, cold-blooded man of the world that he had been two months ago. 158 THE GREATER JOY "Ulrich, I don't see how I can get ready in five days. I have my trousseau to get, you know." "Oh, never mind about getting much. A few frocks, a lingerie gown or two, something substantial to motor in, or get nothing new at all. We shall be quite by our- selves, you know, so we won't have to bother much about dressing and fussing. We're going, you know, to vege- tate, and to love " A frightened look came into her face ; he felt her hands grow cold even while he held them. His own nervous- ness increased, seemed to tower spirally, to threaten to engulf him, and this time it was due to his fear that her scruples would reawaken, would perhaps begin troubling her after she had gone away with him, after it was too late ! She withdrew her hands from his, and this tended to heighten his impression. To his surprise she placed her hands upon his shoulder, and laid hei cheek upon her hand. The action, insignificant in itself, conveyed an in- effable tenderness, and all his fears fell away from him as he realized how complete was her surrender. He gazed adoringly upon the sweet, softly flushed face. His arm encircled her waist, pressed her a little in- sistently perhaps. She removed her left hand from his shoulder, and shifted it under his hand, forcing his fin- gers to relax their tension. Her eyes were closed, and as he watched her face, he saw a sunny smile dawning about her mouth. "What are you smiling about, Alice?" "I am wondering how much more time you are going to waste before you kiss me?" He laughed joyously. He had fought and struggled for her as he had never fought for any woman before, and now that he had won her, he did not even embrace THE GREATER JOY 159 her. He kissed her upon the mouth. Her lips parted. She uttered a little cry. But his mouth did not release hers. CHAPTER XI It was quarter of five in the afternoon when the large touring car majestically rolled along under the stone archway, one of the five entrances to "The Hermitage." At the top of the arch was a dove-cote, and the birds were fluttering about and cooing. Beyond, the entire mountainside was crowned with laurel. Great, dome- shaped shrubs, so full of the shell-pink, crown-shaped blossoms that the foliage was visible only along the lower edge, like a dark skirt, made the mountain gloriously radiant. There were dozens and scores and hundreds of these shrubs ; in parts they stood so closely crowded to- gether as to form a billowy ridge of pink. Before them undulated a sea of bracken, as beautiful and well- formed as Boston fern; back of them a mountain-ridge, taller than their own, reposed in inscrutable majesty against an indigo blue sky. "Have you seen anything more wonderful, Ulrich? I am glad you brought me here ! Oh, it is so good to be alive, to be here with you ! Ulrich, you are not looking at the mountain laurel at all." "No, I am looking at something far sweeter — at you." "Don't, dear. Don't spoil the landscape by becoming personal. It is simply wicked not to enjoy such a scene to the uttermost." "That almost sounds as if enjoying it were a task." "A pleasant task. Nevertheless a task. For I will make a confession. For me also there exists some one 160 THE GREATER JOY 161 upon whom I would rather gaze than upon the finest landscape in the world. In spite of this, I intend to do my duty by the landscape." "Alice, I warn you, I am driving, and the man at the wheel is not supposed to be regaled with intoxicants of any sort. It's dangerous." "That being so, the man at the gear ought to make a dummy of himself." The car halted abruptly. "Kiss me, Alice," he commanded. "You're insatiable." She pulled his head forward, pinching the lobes of his ears as she did so, and kissed his brow. "Ulrich, darling, I am so excruciatingly, so distress- ingly happy." "Not a bit of regret, dear?" "What a question for the bridegroom to ask the bride!" But he did not start the car. He had turned to the side of the road which commanded a view of the val- ley. Some two thousand feet below them was the vil- lage. It was only five o'clock, the sun was still high, blazing down upon them in a torrent of heat, but in the distance, over mountains and in valkys and dales, and in all the depressions upon the tops of the mountains so far away that the valleys looked like mere dimples, and their roads wandering circuitously to the tops were but threads of a barely distinguishable shade of green; over all these distant spaces brooded a thick vapor, a humid mist that shifted from purple to lavender and from lav- ender to smoke-gray. Ulrich found at last what his eyes were seeking. "Do you see that house in the village, Alice, where the light is burning, yonder, near the white church steeple ?" 162 THE GREATER JOY It took her a few minutes to find it. When she had located it, he said: "A minister lives there. If there is any feeling of distress in your foolish, tender little heart, we'll 'phone him." The circumstance was wholly unpremeditated, and he knew, as he spoke, that for the first time he had been sincere in offering to marry her. "I think we've decided all that, Ulrich, dear," she said. "Unlike Crookback Dick, I am in the giving mood to- night. So you must play beneficiary." Her eyes told him what her lips would not say, that she loved him the better for his thought of her. The ''Hermitage" had been built by a famous artist, who had since died, and it was from his widow that Ulrich had secured a three months' lease. The grounds were exquisitely laid out, and the lawns were as well kept as the grass of a park. The roads were firm and hard, and the dust had been laid with oil. The house was built on a rocky cliff, and immediately below it was an Italian garden, with pool, brick walls, marble seats and statuary. Cedars supplied the place of the customary ilex hedge. Alice did not care for this feature, and she was about to remark that it reminded her of a cemetery, when Ulrich commented that he considered this Italian garden by far the most artistic and true to the Italian spirit of any he had seen in America. She was glad she had not aired her view, which she felt vaguely would have distressed him as provincial, and she determined that when she got back to New York she would read up on art and painting and architecture and "such things," so as to be able to converse with him intelli- gently, and not merely play the stupid listener, when art topics came up. THE GREATER JOY 163 There were times when he made her feel very callow and unformed and raw, and she was not quite over the feeling when they reached the house. The house was built in the English style, spreading and spacious, with the near-to-the-ground effect to which the English architects are so partial. Ulrich had highly praised the architecture when showing her some photo- graphs of the place, and the mullioned windows, the flat roof with its square tower, pleased him particularly. He pointed this out to her now, and also drew her attention to the noble, modified Gothic facade which ran along the southern side of the house, about and under which clus- tered several high red rose-bushes. They walked to the steps of the house together, but suddenly Alice drew back. The entire steps were cov- ered with a shimmering, golden stuff that gleamed and reflected the rays of the dying sun like so much beaten gold. "What is it ?" exclaimed Alice. "How beautiful it is ! But, oh, Ulrich, it is a pity to step on it." She turned to him, but instead of answering her ques- tion, he regarded her with an inscrutable smile, a smile in which there was something like cruelty. "What is it, Ulrich ?" she asked in a subdued voice. "Gold leaf?" He shook his head. "Something far different," he said, "and more diffi- cult to procure. I almost despaired of getting it — them — in time." "It? Them?" "Place your foot upon it, and see if you cannot guess what it is." She obeyed him. The golden stuff crackled like dry leaves under her foot, and as she drew back, she saw 164 THE GREATER JOY that the pressure of her foot, light as it had been, had marred the beautiful sheen. The impression of her foot left a dull, bald spot. "Ulrich, it isn't— it can't be " With a sense of nausea she recognized what it was. "Two thousand goldfish died so that this effect might be secured," he smiled. "It is a regal cloth of gold that I have spread for my bride to walk upon, is it not?" "Ulrich, you are cruel, you are terrible!" She shud- dered, and as he touched her elbow, as if to assist her up the golden stairs, she shuddered again. "Sweetheart," he murmured, "love is a strange thing. It is easy enough to be happy when we love if everything about is happy and instinct with life. But a love that is truly great, I should like to say a classic love, desires and requires a more flamboyant background. If we can slaughter and kill for the sake of creating one precious, incomparable and original moment in the history of our love, then indeed can our love stand the ordeal by fire, then indeed is our love real love, love such as informed the gods of old when Pan still made music in woodland and glen." She regarded him with eyes of horror, but as he spoke the horror was allayed and transformed to fascination. "You are terrible, Ulrich!" she repeated, and kissed him. Turning, she ran lightly up the stairs, and having reached the veranda, looked back upon the havoc her small feet had made. Her footsteps brought the servants. The butler and the housekeeper knew Ulrich, and respectfully they greeted him and Alice. Ulrich, when leasing the place, had represented her to be his cousin. It took Alice just an hour to bathe, and dress her hair THE GREATER JOY 165 and don a lingerie robe. One of the maids hooked her gown, and then she went downstairs and sat down on the veranda to wait for Ulrich. He was so long in coming, that Alice became impatient and went for a stroll. She discovered a two-story observatory built upon a high cliff, from where the view was even more magnificent and extended than from the house. She sat down in the second story of this little rustic house to enjoy the summer solitude and to do some seri- ous thinking. She had found it necessary, of late, to actually cultivate serious and concentrated thought. But her mind wandered and strayed back to her lover. It is really remarkable, she thought, how a rational human being can sit for hours and hours and do nothing but think of another human being, and keep on thinking of him all the time. She thought of his eyes and of the strange little flashes of light they emitted; she thought of the tortured, sinuous line into which his mouth fashioned itself before kissing her ; of his smooth- ness, and suavity, and languid distinction; and then she thought of the little cruel smile that sometimes came to the corners of his mouth. What did it mean? Would he be cruel to her some day? How and when was this mad love of theirs destined to end? Would he be the first to desire a separation? Would she? She had thought of all this before more than once, and she did not wish to think of it now, and she began to wish she had not come away from the house alone. A feeling of loneliness came over her. At that moment she saw him, walking away from the observatory in which she was sitting, in the direction of the house. Quickly she called: "Ulrich, Ulrich, here I am — wait for me!" She ran down the spiral stairway as fast as she could 166 THE GREATER JOY in her high-heeled, low shoes and the long, clinging gown. He stood waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. "Didn't you see me ?" she asked reproachfully. "Yes, I saw you." "And you deliberately walked away from me?" He sat down on a rustic bench and took both her hands in his. She was standing before him. "I thought, sweetheart, that perhaps you wanted to be alone a little while; you have had a big dose of me all day." "If you think that, I, too, must have been too much for you." He pulled down her head and whispered in her ear. She drew back, her face flushing : "You are horrid, Ulrich!" Her lips were smiling, and she averted her eyes. Making room for her, he said: "Come and sit down beside me, Alice. Dubiously she regarded the rustic bench. "I do not trust that bench, Ulrich," she said disap- provingly. "I think your knee will be far safer for my gown." He drew her upon his knee, and immediately she began brushing his eyebrows with her fingers. "What's the matter with my eyebrows ?" he demanded. "Nothing. They are perfect." "Alice, do you know, dear, the only time you do not wholly please me is when you pay me compliments." "I am sorry, Ulrich. I pay you a compliment now and then merely to indemnify myself for the disagreeable fact that you are entirely too fine looking for a man. You yourself taught me a man should be brainy rather than handsome." THE GREATER JOY 167 "Haven't I enough brains to suit you?" he asked, a trifle piqued. "Oh, so, so. But if you weren't so aggressively hand- some — don't frown, Ulrich, you know you are quite the most beautiful masculine creature that ever lived — you might have still more brains and instead of being merely a well-known physician you might be a colossus, a sec- ond, a second — why don't you help me find the correct comparison, Ulrich?" "Help you to properly defame me? Indeed not," but he laughed at her audacity. "Give me time, my dear, I am only twenty-nine. Perhaps I may some day be a truly great man." "Perhaps." She kissed him. "We'll hope for the best. Meanwhile, Ulrich darling," her tone became coax- ing, "I am sure you cannot answer offhand a simple ques- tion I am going to ask. In what part of the body is the skin strongest?" He began in a professional tone : "You know as well as I do that the epidermis " She interrupted him with a spurt of rippling laughter. "You dear, sweet, silly thing," she said. "I told you you couldn't answer me offhand. Shall I tell you? The skin of the lips is strongest. If it weren't, our lips would be entirely worn away from all the kissing we have done to-day." "You mischievous little baggage " She kissed him. "Now I have cleansed your lips from the blot left there by those naughty names you called me." "You mischievous little baggage," he repeated wan- tonly, "now cleanse them again." "No, Ulrich, no. I am not a professional window- cleaner." 168 THE GREATER JOY Divided between laughter and desire, he crushed her to him. "My sweetheart," he murmured, "you are utterly, ut- terly delicious I" "It really seems so." She gave him a look of tanta- lizing demureness. "I seem to have reduced your usu- ally rich diction to meagreness. You repeated the same adjective twice." He smothered her in kisses. "You perceive," he said finally, "my diction can be diminished even beyond the repetition-of-the-same-adjec- tive point." "I have already suspected as much," she said gravely. They burst out laughing and fell into each other's arms. Madly he began kissing her throat. His kisses were no longer caresses ; they were an assault, an attack. "That is the way I should like to die," she murmured. "What are you saying ?" he asked sharply. "Ulrich darling, when you no longer love me then do me the kindness of killing me by biting into my throat, by severing the jugular vein. And hold me in your arms, Ulrich, until I die, until I have bled to death." "What a horrible thing to say, sweetheart !" But the suggestion whipped his blood into flame, flag- ellated his senses. Madness seemed to surge to his brain, fire through his veins. His breath became labored and thick. She lay in his arms limp, inert, silent, like a victim awaiting the stroke of the executioner's knife. He felt an almost uncontrollable desire to plunge his teeth into the soft, white column of throat. She wore a low-necked gown, and his lips sought her neck. Struggling to get away, she exclaimed: "Ulrich, you are behaving horribly. I believe you tore THE GREATER JOY 169 my gown. Heavens, how you have mussed it!" Look- ing at him reproachfully, she added, "I made a mistake. The bench would have been safer." She sat down on a bench opposite to him, and delib- erately turned her back to the west. "What a beautiful sunset we are having!" she said, looking at him. "And you are getting such a charming view of it," he mocked. "We are really behaving shockingly," she said in a low, modest voice. Both laughed. He pulled out his watch. "Seven o'clock," he said; "supper is waiting. Come, sweetheart. I am hungry." They walked silently to the house, arm in arm. The sun was back of them. They were walking away from the light, and this seemed to symbolize to her her past and her future. She became contemplative, sad, melan- choly. Her merriness, her mischievousness was gone. She had come to the crossing of the ways and she had chosen. After to-night there was no power in the world that could give her back what she was about to sur- render. * CHAPTER XII He had finally prevailed upon her to retire. They were together in the sitting-room. At the other end of the hall was his bedroom. Adjoining the sitting-room was her dressing-room and her bedroom, the room which they were to share. "Ulrich, is there no maid about — ?" "They have all gone to bed. You told me expressly you needed no maid." He paused, looking at her mis- chievously. "Can I help you?" "Oh, I suppose I can manage alone." "You know very well you cannot without ruining that lovely gown. Be sensible, dear, turn around ; let me help you." "No, no!" "Why not?" he passed his arm around her. "Why not ?" he asked in a low, insinuating voice, the voice that never failed to make her tremble, that made her fear him, its softness seemed so suggestive of the feline grace of the panther approaching its prey on velvet paws. "No, Ulrich dear. No. Please go away, please don't kiss me." She cowered under his kisses, pressing away from him, resisting, unyielding. "What is the matter with you? You are trembling." "Ulrich, I am so frightened!" The words came with a little gasp. Her face was very white, the hand that touched his cold as death. "Of course you are frightened. Why won't you let me ,170 THE GREATER JOY 171 kiss you? My kisses would reassure you." He spoke easily, smiling down into her eyes. She essayed to smile in return, and put her cold fingers upon his lips, as if to silence him. He kissed them rapturously. "Let me help you," he urged once more, coaxingly. 4 'Well, then, you may. But Ulrich " "Yes, yes, fear nothing. My conduct will be emi- nently proper." He began to do so very gently, and not as slowly as she had anticipated. Having completed the task, he kissed her on the back, a little below the nape of the neck. It was no more than she had expected, and she made no protest. As she turned about to face him, after he had disengaged her, he deftly caught her waist and slipped it down from the shoulders and from her arms, tangling the lower part of her arms and her hands in the filmy stuff. "Please, please!" she begged. He clasped her to his breast. "Don't be foolish, sweetheart. What is the harm?" Holding her with one arm, he slipped the fleecy shoul- der straps of her garments down from her shoulder, over the upper arm and imprinted kiss after kiss upon her bare shoulder. "Ulrich ! Please, dear, don't." "What, afraid of me? Alice, dearest, how foolish you are ! You say you are in love with me — why then pre- tend it while having upon your shoulder that soulless, heartless, feelingless bit of linen for my appreciative lips ?" She laughed nervously. "Ulrich, I am sure you want to smoke a cigarette." "What puts such nonsense into your head? I never felt less like smoking in my life. Do you suppose a man 172 THE GREATER JOY expecting to banquet on champagne and canvas-back duck first blunts his appetite by eating Irish stew?" "It is very horrid of you to compare me to canvas- back duck!" "Very well. The next time I shall compare you to Irish stew." She laughed, as he had meant she should, but there was a note of hysteria in her laugh, and the two little red spots, the usual danger signals, showed prominently on either cheek. He released her and helped her into a chair. "Alice, dear," he said, "you are nervous. That is natural. Do you not think as much depends for me upon the impression I make upon you, as for you upon the im- pression you make upon me? I love you, I adore you. [You know how madly. Think then what I were to suffer if you, at the end of a week were to say to me, 'Ulrich, you are not the sort of man I supposed. You are defi- cient in delicacy, you have entirely too much tempera- ment, and the violence of your desire frightens and in no way delights me. I have made a mistake and I must bid you adieu/ Do you think that would be pleasant for me? That sort of thing has happened to men, as well as to women." The removal of his immediate presence had restored her to comparative tranquillitv. The light of mischief glimmered in her eye. "Surely, Ulrich, that has never happened to you?" "Oh," he answered airily, "I have met with one or two unappreciative women." The insolence of his conceit brought a smile to her lips. But again, with alarm, he noted that lurking note of hysteria. He began to fear she might spoil this night of nights for him. Yet he could not believe it. He THE GREATER JOY 173 thought her a woman of too much breeding to lose con- trol of herself in that way. He had perceived with plea- sure that she had slipped the waist completely from her figure, instead of slipping it back over her shoulders, as he had half suspected she would. She had done it quite unconsciously, without any show of embarrassment, and he felt the keenest gratification at seeing her so compla- cent and self-unconscious, for it was one of his dogmas that by such small tokens does the thoroughbred woman establish her claim to good breeding. He had half dreaded that with feigned modesty she would draw the waist back over her shoulders, and he felt that he would have hated her for doing it. Now she sat there, her back turned to the soft glow of the wood-fire which the chill June evening made pleas- ing — her face and the exquisite alabaster of her shoul- ders and bosom illuminated and warmed by the blood- red glow of the flaming pine roots. How beautiful she was ! His lip quivered slightly, as, without appearing to see, he took in every detail of the delicate curves, the firmly modelled flesh. A sudden fear came over him, a fear such as he had never experienced before in the presence of any woman, a fear born of misgivings in his own power to hold the affection he had won. How pure and white and pristine she seemed! What, if in some unintended way, he should offend the innate modesty, which he felt was one of the fundamen- tal traits of her character, was perhaps, its keynote ? He meant to give her as much freedom as she wished. If she seemed to prefer it, he would leave her by her- self till to-morrow. On the other hand, she was pas- sionately fond of him, and undue consideration on his part for her modesty might offend her, and make her doubt the strength of his love, if he failed to employ 174 THE GREATER JOY some of that gentle force which is a lover's privilege ; the latter imprudence might thus be the greater of the two. And again, in the glow of the log-fire, he noted the two little danger signals on either cheek, speaking so elo- quently of her inward perturbation. What was he to do? It was out of the question to subjugate her senses by caressing her, as he would have done with ninety-nine women out of a hundred. Her soul would remain a lucid witness, and would con- demn him, and no intoxication of the senses would ever help him to overcome the arraignment of her spirit. Nor was it his former experience with women that warned him against committing this folly of follies. For the women he had known had not been of a class to nurture observation of the finer and more complex feminal traits. It was the inherited instincts of his race, his blood, that sounded the tocsin of caution. How was he to win her soul to quiescence, as well as her flesh ? She had stretched out one white arm, and in doing so ? had touched a huge chest standing near her. "What is this chest, Ulrich ?" she asked. "I noticed it before. The carving is magnificent. ,, "It is an Italian marriage coffer, a cassone, and I pur- chased it for you, hoping it would please you." And in a low-pitched voice he told her how the Ital- ians of the Renaissance when a little daughter was born, immediately began preparing against the festival of fes- tivals in a woman's life by causing one of these cassones to be carved for her, and when the florid, ornate design which that efflorescent period was bound to evolve, was completed, the mother of the little girl who would one day own it, began to fill it with choice linen, rare THE GREATER JOY 175 laces, costly silks and fabrics, choice pieces of silverware, each a work of inimitable art wrought with elaborate care and with that loving patience which characterized the artists and the artisans of the Renaissance, and to which is largely due the perfection of detail, the minute exquisiteness of each particular which is the hall-mark of this period. Sometimes, if the parents were wealthy, some great artist, Benvenuto, Cellini or Ghiberti, was commissioned to design and to have fashioned under his supervision a set of Apostolic spoons, which consisted of thirteen spoons, twelve of which represented the twelve apostles, the thirteenth being the Saviour spoon. Only two or three of these Apostolic sets remained extant, and only one of these was complete. The plethoric im- agination of the Renaissance in no branch of art ex- pressed itself more fully and with more riotous voluptu- ousness than in the work of the silversmiths. In these spoons, for instance, not only were no two alike, because the figure of the Apostle necessarily differed, but the general design, the surrounding embellishments upon which the Apostle was poised were varied with infinite and extraordinary cunning. A general unity of im- pression, a harmony of appearance was maintained, which was created by the arrangement of the varying details of each individual spoon, but not by the details themselves, so that it was possible to identify two spoons of the same set at a glance, in spite of the wide di- vergence in their embellishments. Each Apostle had cer- tain insignia which were peculiarly his own, which, con- sequently, must be utilized in the design for his spoon; so that just as the Italian painters used a blue robe in garbing the Madonna to denote purity, and a red robe to typify the love of a Mary or a Magdalen, the silversmiths used the design of an eagle or of eagles' feathers to 176 THE GREATER JOY throw into relief the figure of St. John the Evangelist, the eagle being the Judaic symbol of the Holy Ghost, while the key and the cross denoted Peter, the sword St. Paul, and the girdle of the Virgin, St. Thomas. Thus the artists of every guild possessed a mystical language of their own, a language at once subtle and po- etical, which nevertheless because of the singular re- ligious fervor of the age in which these artists flourished, was as familiar to the people as the signs of the alpha- bet, nay, more so. And so, for a brief period of the world's history, the pictorial arts — painting, sculpture, the silversmith's craft — were enabled to speak and not merely to portray, a gift bestowed upon music only a generation ago by Wagner, when, through the creation of the Leitmotif, he fashioned a symbolic if restricted, language by means of which his music makes not merely a blind appeal to the helpless and gagged emotions, but speaks to the intellect of the initiated as plainly as if the message were couched in words instead of in sound. Alice never adored her lover more whole-heartedly than when the musical cadences of his voice were em- ployed in some slightly pedantic discursiveness. He saw the effect he had produced, and was satisfied. Her soul was warming at touch of the sensuous charm he was enmeshing her with, which was so delicately sensuous that she, all aglow with the pictures he was conjuring for her, perceived only the delicacy and not the sensuousness. The peacock wins his mate by spread- ing out for her the bewildering splendor of his feathery raiment, the thrush performs his wooing by singing his purest, most flutelike song. He, too, would bring this woman into complete subjection by the musical mono- tone of his voice, by the imagery of his language, by the suggestiveness of his thoughts. THE GREATER JOY 177 "I wish," she said, "there were one of those spoons left in the cassone. And it was very good of you, Ul- rich, to give me this." "Let us see," said Ulrich, "whether perhaps one spoon is left in the chest." "Oh, is there ariything in it ?" "There is. But I was in doubt, whether to ask you to look at the contents to-night or to-morrow." Troubled vaguely by some subtle intonation of his voice, she turned her face to him. "Why not to-night?" she asked. "Let us look at them to-night," he answered evasively. He arose, and lighting the three candles of a brass can- delabra placed it upon the chair on which Alice had been seated. Then taking a key from his pocket, he drew up a chair before the cassone and proceeded to open the huge chest. "Are you coming, Alice?" She had slipped into a kimono of white embroidered crepe de chine, and again he felt a twinge of joy at the amour propre which she displayed. Another woman might have knelt at his knee, as she was now doing, glo- rying in the presentation of her white flesh to his eye, or forgetful of it in the flush of momentary excitement. But with the certain instinct of the artist whose dis- cernment of the exigencies of the moment is unfailing, she had entered into the spirit of exaltation in which he had wrapped himself, helping him to suppress the fortis- simo of love until the moment of the crashing finale, es- pousing instead the unostentatious pianissimo, which, free from violence and discord, plainly allows the finest chords, the most ecstatic harmonies to dominate. Kneeling close beside his knee, but never touching it, she watched him take out one by one the old Venetian 178 THE GREATER JOY necklaces heavily studded with turquoises and with enor- mous pearls, with fantastic protuberant ornaments, as large as peas, and as finely corrugated as a brain-stone ; the strange silver vessels for spices in the shape of knights clad in full coat of mail, javelin, breastplate, cab- asset and all ; the salt receptacles in the form of mytho- logical beasts, griffons and centaurs, and a Medusa's head through the silver curls of which the pepper had once been sprinkled over the strange, rich foods of the guests at a banquet in the Doge's Palace. A strand of coral beads left her breathless with de- light. Allowing them to run through the fingers of one hand, she continued to kneel, now resting her elbow upon Ulrich's knee. Her eyelids were lowered; the mouth, half-open, gleamed the same hue as the pink coral in the uncertain light of the room. At contact of her elbow with his knee, a sharp spasm of pain swept through Ulrich. Oh, to be able to take her in his arms this moment, without fear of frightening her, of arousing her hostility, her rancor ! His self-con- trol ebbed and waned ; like an arrow the pain was shoot- ing through him, setting every nerve aquiver. Setting his teeth, he said in an uncertain voice, a voice rendered husky, thick and unsteady by emotion: "There is something more below at the bottom of the cassone. You may wish to look at most of it alone, sweetheart. Only this I want to show you, to tell you how it was made." Stooping, he drew forth a linen robe of gossamer fine- ness, as delicate and diaphanous almost as bolting cloth, with a design as fine and marvellously intricate as the scroll-work and Arabesques in which the Moorish artists who built the Alhambra loved to perpetuate and make visible the glories of their fluid imagination. PnT,:H STRAND OF CORAL BEADS LEFT H^R BREATHLESS WITH DI.UGHT. Page 179 THE GREATER JOY 179 "It is as fine as cobweb,'" she exclaimed joyfully. "It is wonderful!" "Below are other robes, and garments more intimate, and all of them, Alice, were intended for the trousseau of a Turkish princess with a taste for European dress. But the match was broken off, and I was fortunate enough to be able to get the outfit. For you must know that years have gone to the making of it." With a shock she realized that he had sent for this out- fit before she promised herself to him. How sure he had been of her! But she said nothing, while he con- tinued speaking. And in the same musical voice as be- fore, now tremulous with the passion which was agitating him, with the desire which he could barely control, mak- ing a superhuman effort to choose words which seem- ingly innocuous and poetical, would nevertheless induce in her a condition of excitement matching his own, he painted for her a word-picture of a small, ivy-enshrouded convent in France in the valley of the Garonne, where white-robed sisters of a contemplative order spent their hours of recreation in embroidering these fairy-like fab- rics. With an aim as deadly as the marksmanship of a sharp-shooter, he described to her the life of these nuns, dwelling in eternal peace, in a land of incessant sunshine, beneath cloudless skies that day after day poured down a golden glory of heat, while the horizon was bounded by the tall convent walls that circumvallated the convent gardens. Their sequestered beauty was ideally calculated to arouse visions of love, and was abnormally conducive to the fostering of that subconscious life of the senses, which, suppressed successfully through years and years, would ultimately rise in aggressive self-assertion, in re- bellion at the shackles imposed by the rules of the con- vent. And these women, doomed to celibacy, who had 180 THE GREATER JOY forfeited the privilege of ever expecting marriage, whose entire passion of love must be employed in the unwhole- some contemplation of the beauties and splendors of their celestial Bridegroom, spent sometimes a year of their lives, sometimes two or three or four, in complet- ing the embroidery of one single garment destined to be worn by a bride on her wedding night, to adorn her on the marriage couch, a mute witness of the intoxication, the terror of first love. And of all this, these white-robed nuns, in their soli- tary, sequestered convent walks, in the still hours of in- ward revelation which come to all flesh and blood, must have some premonition, some lurid perception. What, then, were the emotions aroused in them by such visions ? Alice had withdrawn her elbows from his knees, and her eyes closed, her hands folded under her chin as if in prayer, she knelt as an alabaster statue. But as he ceased speaking, she opened her eyes, and as she lifted her face he saw she made no effort to disguise the emotion which was flooding her. She was aglow with passion. A song of exultation leaped to his brain — raced through his blood. He had won. She would be his, wholly his, entirely subjugated, completely subdued. Without further ado he took her in his arms. But he did not kiss her. He was as unable, at the moment, to use his lips for kisses as for words. His heart was beating like a hammer. "Ulrich, how your heart is beating! I can feel it." "It is you who are making it beat so terribly," he mur« mured. She drew away from him, and again he saw a fright- ened look come into her eyes. Was it possible that even now she felt alarm rather than love ? THE GREATER JOY 181 "Alice," he said, "I want to tell you a parable. There was a rosebud which promised to become a flower of rare and peerless beauty. All the other buds on the same shrub had been cut away to give the entire strength of roots and leaves to this one bud. The sun became enam- ored of this rosebud, and day after day lavished his care- fully tempered rays upon her, in the hopes of enjoying her perfume and her beauty when finally the rosebud would consent to unfold her petals as a token of her ma- turity. When the sun sent the rain to earth, it enjoined it not to beat upon the rose too tempestuously, but to lave her gently, lest the rosebud be frightened at the fierceness of the sun's wooing. Finally the bud signified her willingness to unfold herself in the full majesty of her beauty to the sun. But having given her promise, she suddenly decided that she desired a little more rain to fall. Obediently the sun caused it to rain. Then the rosebud thought she needed a few more hours of sun- shine to warm her after the cold rainfall, and the sun shone his prettiest. By that time it was late in the day, and would you believe it, that minx of a rosebud then claimed another night's repose as a bud after the exact- ing experiences of sunshine and rain. The sun was complacent, but the next morning that abominable little rosebud led him through the same genuflections once more." As Ulrich finished, Alice, sitting on the floor, at his knee, threw back her head, and to his amazement and discomfiture, burst into a peal of unfeigned and entirely mhysterical merriment. Composing herself, she knelt, and lifting his chin, she brushed away the frown that had gathered on his brows with her fingers. Then she said, in the half- roguish, half-affectionate way he had learned to love so dearly : 182 THE GREATER JOY "Ulrich, dear, the sun showed a good deal of delicacy and — stupidity. I am sure if he had discreetly retired behind a cloud, the rosebud would have contemplated her unrobing, unfurling, quite sensibly, like any other well- bred, decorum-loving rose." He kissed her rapturously. Then he arose. "The sun withdraws," he said. "When may he reap- pear from behind the cloud?" "In ten minutes." She began undressing hastily, but now that she was alone she became very nervous, and the reflections which had come to her at sunset as she walked away from the sun, swarmed back upon her. Try as she would, she could not escape the upbraidings of conscience. What terrible sin was she committing? Had she lost all mod- esty? It seemed a shameful thing that, loving him, she would feel this way. Then it occurred to her that prob- ably every woman, married or unmarried, felt much as she did, and this afforded her considerable consolation. She forced herself to think of other matters, and as she slipped into the nightrobe for which she had paid a riotous price, she remembered poor Marie Antoinette, and her horror at having to change her chemise in the presence of several ladies-in-waiting. She wished Ul- rich would return. She would forget all these horrid and uncomfortable things as soon as he kissed her. Cer- tainly he had been exquisitely kind and delicate. It would never do to spoil his pleasure by allowing him to see how piteously nervous she was. She suddenly be- came aware that he had entered the room and had closed the door. He did not approach, but waited behind a japanned screen that stood near the door. "May I come, Alice?" he asked. "Yes, Ulrich." THE GREATER JOY 183 She met him half way, and flung herself into his arms. "Kiss me," she commanded. She meant to be brave, but she could not control the trembling of her body. And her hands were cold as death. She was grateful to him for not appearing to notice her nervousness. He picked her up in his arms and carried her into the adjoining room. It was sweet to feel him so strong and agile, sweet, too, to feel his warm arms about her cold body and his breath upon her cheek. He set her down upon a small, furry bed-rug. Its soft lushness was almost disagreeable. Subconsciously she withdrew first one foot and then the other, but he stood so close before her that she could not step aside. "I do not like this rug," she said. "What is it made of?" He laughed. "Canary-bird feathers." "Ulrich, you are terrible, terrible!" With a gesture like a frightened child that wants to be taken up by sheltering arms, she put out her arms to him. The world seemed to recede. She was conscious only of his presence and of the terrible beating of the blood in her veins. "Ulrich, Ulrich," she whispered, "I love you, I adore you, I worship you !" CHAPTER XIII "How many women have you loved, Ulrich?" "Surely, you do not expect my memory to be as in- fallible as all that," he smiled. "That is witty, but hardly kind — to the women." "A little kindness leavened by wit is more agreeable than a lot of kindness unseasoned by the Tabasco sauce of repartee." "I have noticed, Ulrich, dear, that you frequently em- ploy metaphors based upon table dainties. Do all gour- mands do that?" "Dear, dear, gourmands — men who overeat — would !>e more likely to refer to homely fare, leaving it to the ^gourmets — folks who love the tidbits of the best chefs — to concern themselves with the dainties." "Thank you for the correction, dear. Nevertheless, it Is a disgusting habit to have, to compare everything un- der the sun to eatables." "Not everything, Alice. Not everything. I have not yet compared Strauss's 'Salome' to the sausage called Belloni, although the temptation to do so has been great, since you invariably pronounce 'Salome' as if it rhymed with the other. It is a provoking habit of yours!" "A month together, and we have each discovered that the other has an unpleasant habit !" They regarded each other with mock gravity, and then fell into each other's arms, laughing rapturously. He was the first to withdraw from her embrace. 184 THE GREATER JOY 185 "What is that perfume you are using to-day?" he asked. "Lily of the Valley. Imported. Don't you like it?" "It's odious." "I will never use it again." "Please don't." They remained silent for a few moments, she some- what amused at the disgust he had so frankly expressed and which had been caused by a drop of a very delicious expensive perfume. But he was thinking. For days he had been endeavoring to communicate to her an important piece of news. So far his courage had failed him. He could, however, defer it no longer. "Alice, the King, my grandfather, is very ill. I have had three cablegrams, as you know, in as many days. I may have to return home " "When?" "Next week." "To-day is Friday. What day next week?" "I am afraid " "Out with it, Ulrich." "Well, I ought to sail on Monday. The yacht is be- ing provisioned, and will be ready by Sunday night. Will you come with me?" His tone was tense with fear of a refusal. She sighed as she said : "It is the first week of August. The Medical School does not reopen until October. I can be back by then. Yes, I can come." Teasingly, she added: "If you are sure you really want me." "If " He looked at her steadily. "Alice," he said bluntly, "I had hoped you would consent to remain abroad with me." 186 THE GREATER JOY "Remain abroad?" she exclaimed. She had forced herself to ignore the future, and his question therefore held neither the unexpected nor the expected. Now he made her pause. "How about my medical studies, Ulrich? I cannot just be your — your " "Sweetheart," he prompted. "And nothing else." "Why not?" "That would be odious. That would be debasing my- self. I do not think, Ulrich, I can do that." Suddenly an idea came to her. "Ulrich, if I were to take up German seriously — I know a little now — couldn't I continue my studies abroad? In that case " He said decisively : "I would never consent to your taking a medical course abroad. You value your reputation, I believe. Very well. If you will consent to come with me, I will do what I can to protect your name, but it would be quite impossible to do so if you were to take a medical course abroad and form a large circle of acquaintances. The position would be intolerable for you, believe me." She looked at him askance. She did not quite relish the masterful tone he had assumed, but she was just enough pleased to admit that if his attitude was unlover- like for the first time, his manner was precisely the man- ner which a domineering, but well-meaning, husband would employ. "But Ulrich, if we arranged matters the way I want. we would be able to see so much more of each other than if I remain here and you return home." "If you remain here, I shall, on some pretext or other, THE GREATER JOY 187 manage to take a sail over every three or four months. I suppose we can then manage to keep up appearances. You can continue your medical studies, but you will have to cut out hospital work and take a small apart- ment, and not be on visiting terms with too many folks. Then when I come, we can practically be together all of the time.' , She flushed painfully. 'That would be the best plan," she said in a constrained voice, "but I do not know if I can carry it out. I shall have to do a little figuring. I am not rich, Ulrich, dear, and I do not wish to use up all my little capital, which I should have to do if I give up the hospital work. You see, in return for my services in the morning, Doctor Etheridge has arranged for my board." He regarded her amusedly. "You do not suppose that I intend to allow you to pay for your apartment, do you?" he asked. "I, of course, expect to defray all the expenses of your housekeeping. As we'll have to discuss that topic some time or other, we might as well get through with it now. Why worry about money matters ? I know you do, dear. Don't you suppose I know what a woman's wardrobe costs? And yours is quite impeccably lovely. This simple, smart lit- tle morning frock you are wearing cost you a pretty penny. Shall I guess what it cost you?" "Well?" "Sixty dollars at least." "Fifty-nine ninety." She laughed. "It was horribly extravagant of me to get it, but I knew it would please you. It is so Frenchy-looking. It does please you, doesn't it?" "It pleases me and it grieves me. It grieves me when I think you spent your precious savings on all these 188 THE GREATER JOY pretty feathers, because I know you got them on my ac- count and not because of yourself." "What if I did, Ulrich, dear? I never dressed very extravagantly before, and then for the last three years I have practically lived in uniform. But after I had prom- ised myself to you — I did so want to look au fait — is that the right way to pronounce it ?" Ulrich was delighted. It was one of his favorite ex- pressions which she had adopted into her own vocabu- lary. "Alice, you are not very rich, as you say, and there- fore, dear, you are going to allow me to pay your rent, your butcher and grocer bills, your dressmaker and de- partment store accounts." "In brief, you wish to keep me! No, Ulrich, a thou- sand times, no !"" He had expected just this. How different she was from any and every other woman he had known ! And how he loved her ! She put her head against his shoulder and said : "It was very sweet of you, nevertheless, Ulrich, to think of it." He protested : "A man usually expects to be the provider." She started away from his shoulder. There was al- most a wail in her voice as she exclaimed bitterly : "Provider — for his wife — yes." "Alice, sweetheart, how can you be so bitter?" "I'm not bitter. Only — oh, nothing." "I didn't imagine you felt that way about it." "I didn't mean to let you know I did, Ulrich. I'm sorry." "But inasmuch as we consider ourselves man and wife, why take this stand?" THE GREATER JOY 189 "Even if we consider ourselves man and wife, we're not man and wife. I wish you would ignore the subject, Ulrich. I've tried to be brave, and I've kept the pain away out of sight, but it hurts me dreadfully when I think of it. And I will not accept one penny from you. I cannot make a paid woman of myself, even for you." "I thought you were happy." "I am happy," she replied vigorously. Coming to sit on his knee, she added : "Truly and really, I am, Ulrich. I was silly just now, I dare say. Don't crinkle your fore- head like that. Come, I'll massage the wrinkles away, or shall I kiss them away ?" She put her lips against his forehead softly. "Alice," he said coldly, "at this moment your show of affection is insincere. It is unworthy of you." Her arm dropped limply to her side. "Alice, won't you stay abroad with me ?" "If you will allow me to go on with my medical studies as soon as I have sufficient German — yes." "Decidedly not." "You might safely make the promise. It will take me at least two years to study German. Two years," she added meditatively, "is a long time." "What do you mean?" he asked with sudden fierce- ness. "Do you mean to insinuate that you think you'll be tired of me before the two years are up ?" "Ulrich, what an expression ! Tired of you !" "If you didn't mean that, just what did you mean? I insist on knowing." 1 His eyes blazed so with anger that she was frightened. She was surprised at this outburst. His rage was out of all proportion to the cause. "I meant nothing at all," she stammered apologetically. 'I used the words stupidly. One uses them so often." 190 THE GREATER JOY "Perhaps you meant that I would tire of you? Well, I won't." "Ulrich!" "I would never have believed it possible that I should be quite so crazy about a woman as I am about you. Fve seen you every day for a month, and I'm more wildly in love with you than ever." There was something almost ludicrous in the semi- defiance with which he hurled these words at her. But it did not occur to her to laugh. She sat numb and still. His anger was terrible, but there was some of the sub- limity of the thunderstorm about it. The reserve strength, the colossal momentum of force which she had always suspected existed underneath his easy and smooth exterior, was in evidence at last. "I believe I love you more than you love me," he shot forth again. Quick as lightning she replied: "But the sacrifice is mine." "Yes, and I wish it were not, if you are going to throw it up to me. I wouldn't have thrown it up to you, if I had made the sacrifice!" "You threw it up to me the evening we came to an agreement — you let me understand just what a sacrifice it would be." "I would never have mentioned it again afterward." "Ulrich, don't be so angry. Come, let me kiss you. Then you will feel better." She put her arm about his, and pursed her lips. He pushed her away almost roughly. "I don't want to be kissed." The sudden transition from his kingly manner to that of a sulky child was so comical that it took all of the girl's self-possession to suppress a smile. "I don't like that expression," he said sternly. "A THE GREATER JOY 191 'paid woman!' If you had any notion of how a man treats such a woman, you would never have been so crude as to use the word." Her cheeks crimsoned. She lived in constant horror of appearing raw or callow to him, with his old-world, sophisticated, polished way of regarding things. And now he had called her crude ! "Have I ever treated you with discourtesy? Answer me!" he thundered. "Mercy, Ulrich, no!" "Have I shown lack of delicacy at any time, forced myself on you if I perceived any sign of disinclination on your part?" "No, Ulrich, no." Her anger died away suddenly, as she realized that in questioning her he was trying to vindicate himself to himself. He was standing still and mute now, peering with un- seeing eyes across to the opposite mountain range. They were sitting in a maple grove, and she, during his out- burst of anger, had seated herself on the grass. Now on her knees, she slid across the grass to him. But he would not notice her. Softly she laid a kiss on his cheek. "My beautiful panther," she murmured. "My tem- pest, my thunderstorm, don't be so angry with your little Puritan." "My little Puritan!" Like a hurricane he suddenly swept over her, envelop- ing her, crushing her in his arms. "Ulrich, Ulrich, you are killing me!" He released her. "I have something to say to you," he murmured. "You had better make up your mind to remain with me." In a quiet voice he told her how cruelly he had suf- 192 THE GREATER JOY fered the evening he brought her home with him while Sylvia lay ill, how he had given battle royal to tempta- tion that night. "I will not consent to suffer like that again. You understand what I mean. If you will not remain with me " he shrugged his shoulders. She became frigid. "Do I construe that as an intimation that you desire to break with me unless I yield to your wishes?" "I cannot break with you any more than you can break with me. You're my fate, I'm yours." Busily she picked blades of grass. "Alice," he said passionately, "don't spoil things. Stay with me." "You have certainly been frank with me," she said in a cold, distant voice. "You cannot possibly resent my candor." "No, I do not resent it. I suppose it is the inevitable man-nature. I suppose a woman can never wholly un- derstand a man, just as a man can never wholly com- prehend a woman. Now that aspect of our separation would never have occurred to me." "As concerning yourself?" She flushed angrily. "If it did not occur to me concerning you, it would hardly have occurred to me concerning myself," she said. "I beg your pardon. I had not meant it in the way you took it. But it would have occurred to you after we had separated, both as to myself and yourself." She said: "Possibly." Honesty compelled her to admit it. "You see, sweetheart," he went on, "what I feel for you is love, real love. But love is not love without de- THE GREATER JOY 193 sire. You are too passionate a woman yourself not to realize what torment repressed passion can inflict on a man. I have much work to do when I get back to Ho- hen. Shortly, inevitably, I shall be Regent. There are many men and many conditions I shall have to fight. But I am so constituted that I shall make a lamentable failure of things if I have to fight myself in addition to fighting others. So you must forgive my brutality in being so candid. You'll stay with me?" "Will you allow me to go on with my studies?" she bargained. "Don't tease me, Alice. It is impossible. Will you stay with me?" "Well, yes, I will, on one condition. You won't force me to accept money from you, will you ?" After a moment's reflection, he said : "No." "Then I'll remain with you," she replied. He became gentle, suave, caressing. "I knew you would be reasonable, sweetheart." Fond- ling her hand, he added : "Now you may kiss your pan- ther, your tempest, your cyclone " "Thank you, I don't want to." She sprang to her feet lightly, and without looking back, she ran away. He called after her to wait, but she neither stopped nor turned. She was running down the road with amazing speed. He jumped to his feet, kicked furiously aside the blanket on which she had been sitting, for it had almost tripped him, and gave chase. "What in all the world is the matter with you, Alice?" he asked, having caught up with her. "Do stop a mo- ment." "I want to be alone," she said tearfully. 194 THE GREATER JOY She was fumbling for a handkerchief, but could not find it. He drew out his. "I have a handkerchief and a shoulder to offer you," he said. "Will you have either, or both? ,, Without smiling at his sally, she took his handkerchief and dried her eyes. "It was better to tell you the truth, wasn't it?" he asked. "I suppose so. Please don't let us discuss it. You can't imagine how it makes a woman feel. I care for you in so many different ways — I admire your intellect, I take joy in your work, I rejoice when I see you referred to and cited as an authority in medical journals. But your feeling for me seems to be one thing, and one thing only. Oh— it hurts !" "Alice !" He was genuinely speechless. "And now, Ulrich," she went on, "if you only as much as care to pretend that you care for me a tiny, wee little bit in a decent sort of way, you will drop the subject. I am going with you. I will remain with you. You are getting your way, as usual. Now please, be cheerful, and let us discuss — the weather." She linked her arm in his, and smiled bravely at him. "Take your big, clumsy handkerchief," she said. He took it, and, arm in arm, they walked down the road. Suddenly she said coaxingly: "Panther, now you may kiss your little Puritan." CHAPTER XIV They sailed via the Mediterranean, and as he had word on making port that King Egon had rallied, they spent a week in Italy. It was an ideal week, and opened un- dreamed of vistas to Alice. Much as she knew of litera- ture, a knowledge which ever amazed and delighted him anew, she knew barely anything of art. But her horror of appearing unpolished or raw in his eyes made her as- sume, when sight-seeing, what might very well have passed as an ecstatic silence. But she determined, once she was ensconced in her new home, to study many things beside German. She was delighted with Venice, but she loved Florence best — Florence, the city of Dante, of Giotto, of Lucca and Andrea della Robbia, of the Campanile, sweet wraith- like tower of loveliness. And unformed as her taste was, and as he, with his keen insight into her character knew it to be, he was surprised at the soundness of judgment which she frequently displayed in appraising a work of art, which, indeed, she ventured to do only when her en- thusiasm carried her away. She was anxious to see Paris and Vienna, but he would take her to neither city. He was so well known in both capitals that it would be impossible for him to avoid rec- ognition, and to be seen in his company for three or four days would ruin her reputation. She could not help wondering whether there was not some more potent rea- son for his desire to avoid the two gayest, wickedest cap- itals in Europe. Some woman? 195 196 THE GREATER JOY They separated in Switzerland, he proceeding alone to Hohenhof-Hohe. Alice followed the next day. Sylvia met her at the station. At Ulrich's request, Alice had written the Princess from New York that, after all, she would pay a visit to Hohen. Whether the Princess sus- pected the true state of affairs or not was still an unsolved problem. Sylvia had had some one procure the addresses of a number of reasonable priced lodgings, and in the after- noon Alice went by herself to find a suitable apartment. She finally rented two rooms in a short, obscure little street called Prinz Ulrich Strasse, which seemed a happy omen. She had been told at several of the other houses at which she called that no "gentleman" visitors were allowed, and so she inquired, before definitely engaging the two large rooms in the Prinz Ulrich Strasse, which were light and airy but somewhat expensive, whether she might have a gentleman call. The Portier replied with a grin: "Aber natuerlich. What else are you paying twenty marks for a twelve-mark room for?" Decidedly that left a bad taste in the mouth, and Alice was almost tempted to cancel the bargain. But the house was so clean and neat and aristocratic looking, and the rooms so light and airy, because of a narrow strip of garden adjoining the house, that she swallowed her mor- tification and paid her deposit. She asked Ulrich whether the street was named for him, and he said yes. It had been broken through some ten years ago when he had practically been heir-apparent because Prince Joachim, the then heir-apparent, had been a consumptive and childless. Egon had been born the next year, and he had lapsed into relative insignificance until the precarious condition of the old King's health THE GREATER JOY 197 made it evident that it was merely a question of time be- fore he, Ulrich, would be Regent. Alice could not help wishing that Prince Joachim had enjoyed the best of health and had raised a baker's dozen of children. She began dimly to realize the political importance of a small child's life. Ulrich seemed pleased that she had taken rooms in the Prinz Ulrich Strasse. It was a quiet, vornehme street, not in the least spiessbuergerlich, and no one would be prying into their business. But was she not paying very much? Not that he wished to violate the promise he made her at the Hermitage, but if she ultimately would decide to allow him to pay her expenses, she would make him the happiest of men. Meanwhile he did insist on one thing. As she was going to pay the rent, and as he was to at least partially occupy the rooms, he claimed it ^p his privilege to be allowed to furnish them. She had not the heart to refuse, the more so as it was out of the question for her to spend the money required for hand- some rugs and furniture, and she felt that she had no right to deprive him of the luxurious surroundings to which he was accustomed. She was honest in telling herself that as far as she was concerned, a painted floor would have done as well as the finest Axminster rug; a few cane chairs would have been as acceptable as the finest damask-covered furni- ture, and a cot would have yielded slumber as refreshings as the most ornately carved four-poster. But to imagine Ulrich's sleeping in a cot under an ordinary, calico- quilted comfort! The idea was preposterous. She dared not expect it of him. He must have comforts quilted in silk, and sheets with hand-embroidered hems at least four inches deep. It was decided that she was to spend the two or three 198 THE GREATER JOY days required to furnish the rooms with Sylvia at the Koenigliches Palais. Ulrich's mansion was two blocks away, and was known as the Neues Palais. Little Prince Eitel Egon lived with him instead of with his grand- father, because the old King was so very ill, and Ulrich believed in rigid discipline for the boy. When Eitel Egon attained his tenth year, the Neues Palais would be- come his establishment, as it was the custom for the Erbprinz, the Hereditary Prince, to receive his own es- tablishment upon his eleventh birthday. Sylvia said that Ulrich had been severely criticized by the press for hav- ing Eitel Egon with him at his home, instead of allowing him to remain under the King's roof until his tenth year. He had thereby upset all traditions of the past. But Ul- rich, so Sylvia said, persisted in saying the lad was not strong and needed constant medical supervision, and he knew of no one qualified to give the same more conscien- tiously than himself. "However," concluded the Princess with a malicious smile, "dear Ulrich does not allow for the weeks and sometimes months during which Eitel Egon is at the Neues Palais without any medical supervision whatever, while Ulrich is absent in Vienna or Paris — conducting medical experiments, of course." Alice said nothing. It was evident that Sylvia did not share Ulrich's affection for little Eitel Egon. She was anxious to see the child. It hurt her somewhat to think Ulrich had spoken so sparingly of the little lad of whom, according to all accounts, he was so fond, and yet it pleased her immensely to learn of this new and unex- pected side of his character. But Eitel Egon was ill with croup, and could not leave his bed. Ulrich seemed greatly annoyed, and said the attack could have been warded off by any person possessing a modicum of THE GREATER JOY 199 brains, and would have been warded off if Frau von Schwellenberg had not been confined to her bed. He looked insinuatingly at Sylvia while he spoke, but his cousin maintained an unmoved and placid countenance. Sweetly she answered: "Dear Ulrich, I believe all your instructions concerning the child have been followed to the letter." "Seeing the child was not well, upon your return, you might have cabled me, I think." He spoke in a censo- rious way which Alice had never before seen him em- ploy. Sylvia swept her eyes insinuatingly from the girl to Ulrich. "I hardly think you would have thanked me for set- ting your duty so plainly before your eyes," she retorted. "At least you might have given Egon a little personal attention." "What do you take me for? A nursery maid?" she retorted. "You know that the nights in September are likely to be cold," he continued, "and on hearing that the boiler in the Neues Palais had burst, and that the steam could not be turned on, you might have had Egon brought over here. You could easily have made room for him. For that matter, Frau von Schwellenberg, ill or well, would have let him have her sitting room for a few nights." Sylvia looked distinctly annoyed. Her charm and sweetness vanished. A cruel, vixenish, spiteful look came into her eyes. "Dear Ulrich," she snapped, "do you really suppose a person could be found in the entire kingdom possessing the hardihood to disobey any of your instructions, much less any instruction concerning Egon? Everybody knows, my amiable cousin, that you are king in all but 200 THE GREATER JOY name, and have been for years. Your glove is velvet, dear Ulrich, but your hand most decidedly is iron." Alice arose and went to the door. "Don't go, honey/' said Sylvia with waspish sweet- ness. "Ulrich and I, having proper family feeling, in- dulge in these little quarrels about Egon once a week. Nobody minds us, and everybody listens. It makes such delectable gossip for the Court." Alice stood at the door. She felt horribly embar- rassed, and did not know whether to go or stay. At this moment Fraeulein von Hornung, the lady-in-waiting, came into the room, and Sylvia began an animated con- versation with her. Ulrich, gloomy and stormy-looking, passed through the door at which Alice had halted. She stepped out after him. He was waiting for her in the little rose-colored salon in which the Princess gave her afternoon teas. She went straight to him. "I am sorry your little cousin is so ill," she said. "Can I not come and take care of him ?" "You sweet thing!" he said in low, affectionate tones. "Please let me come, Ulrich. I should love nothing better. It always made me happy to take care of a child." Her voice quavered ever so lightly. "No — thank you, my sweet little Puritan," he mur- mured. "I have a very competent nurse now, and Egon is much better. But Sylvia's heartlessness exasperates me. "Isn't it assumed rather than real?" "Not in Egon's case. She dislikes the child intensely. She treated him abominably when he lived here. That's why I have him with me now." Ulrich paused, and after a moment's hesitation, continued: "One evening when Egon was about five years old, a prestidigitator had THE GREATER JOY 201 been engaged for an evening's entertainment in the big hall downstairs. The entire Court assembled to see the magician's tricks and the servants were permitted to stand in the rear of the hall and look on. Egon's maid and governess asked permission to be present. Sylvia gave it. Grandfather was too ill to have any voice in the matter. Egon, who was still awake, begged to have some one stay with him. Remember he was not yet five, and the day happened to be the anniversary of his mother's death. Then my cousin — I like to think it was just thoughtlessness and not deliberate cruelty — told the child that the man downstairs was a magician and could summon the spirits of the departed, and that he must be a good little boy, or he would be punished. Then these three excellent women, having extinguished the light, left Egon alone and went downstairs. Ten minutes later I came into the hall. I heard a whimpering. Running upstairs, I went to Egon's room, and heard the miserable story. Egon by that time was feverish with terror. I lighted the gas, dressed him, and took him away with me. Since that day he has lived with me. No one had seen me enter that night excepting two lackeys at the door. I threatened to inflict all sorts of punishment on them if they dared tell that they had seen me take Egon away. Can you imagine the pleasant time Sylvia had on finding Egon's bed empty? She was in a frenzy, they say. The entire palace was aroused, excepting grand- father. They searched everywhere. Sylvia herself, in a pale pink ball gown, crawled through a gooseberry bush because some one remembered there was a deep pit back of it. At three in the morning, Sylvia had me called. She was in hysterics by that time. Only then did I tell her that Egon was safe and sound in my home. She would not speak to me for a week." 202 THE GREATER JOY "I do not wonder. It was a cruel thing to do." "Cruel of me, or of them ?" "Of you. As to them, it was shocking, ghastly !" Her face expressed her abhorrence. "Alice, I have treated you badly in not marrying you. Whenever you feel inclined to blame me, will you re- member in partial extenuation of my conduct that if I had married you, I would have been unable to do any- thing at all for Egon ? I would have been forced to stand by idly, after grandfather's death, and heaven only knows what would have happened. Sylvia is wholly unscrupu- lous where her ambition is concerned." "I don't understand," said Alice, wholly bewildered. "If we had married, you and I," said Ulrich, "I should have been out of the race for the succession. Sylvia, be- ing a woman, is barred by the Salic law. Gunther, my grandfather's youngest brother's son, would have been heir-apparent, or, in case of Egon's death, would have inherited the crown — the life of a child is easily snapped." "Ulrich, what do you mean? That is a horrible accu- sation !" "Privation, unkindness, lack of care, have killed many a child." "But a child that is a king!" "My sweet little Puritan, how little you know of the world! Add to this the further fact that Sylvia loves our cousin Gunther, and has refused to marry him again and again only because she will not marry any one who is not a sovereign prince or an heir-apparent, and you can make a pretty fair guess as to the chance little Egon would have of reaching manhood if I were out of the way." "But " THE GREATER JOY 203 She began and stopped abruptly. She felt a certain delicacy, a certain reticence in discussing his relatives that amazed and delighted him whenever they were on the topic. "What, dear?" he asked. "I thought Sylvia seemed so kind, so straightforward. And you seemed fond of her." "I am fond of her, in a way. She is a very pretty and a very clever woman, and can make herself extremely useful. We were children together, romped, played, quarrelled, made up and kissed. As to trusting her — the best you can do in that regard, dearest, is to appear to trust her always and never to do so. And as to that old fox who is at her heels continually, our superlative Master of Ceremonies, the Hofmarschall, beware of him ! You have not yet met him, as these days he is in con- stant attendance on grandfather, to whom, I admit, he is genuinely devoted. Trust a rattlesnake sooner than him." Alice contemplated her lover gravely. "How very odd all this seems," she said. "And why didn't you tell me about Egon before? It would have made things so much easier for me." "I didn't know you then to be the soul of generosity and honor, my sweet Alice. The average woman would have been keenly jealous of the boy. It would have annoyed her to think that love for another per- son, though a child, could act as a deterrent from marriage." The girl bowed her head so that Ulrich could not see her eyes. She would not tell him that she had felt a momentary pang of which he described her as being in- capable. Following a sudden impulse, she flung her arms about his neck, and kissed him on the lips. 204, THE GREATER JOY "My dear girl, be careful/' he warned her; "we shall be seen." But she had already kissed him thrice. She stood in the deep embrasure of the window and watched him walk down the street. Bitter-sweet min- gled in her feelings for him. Sweet it was assuredly to know he had this tenderness in his heart for a little child, and it was indescribably bitter to think that she would not be able to bear him a child. A terrible spasm of al- most physical agony passed through her at the thought. The maternal instinct was strong in her, but it had been latent until now. She was overwhelmed with harassing doubt as to her ability to hold his love. In spite of the deep well of tenderness in his nature, which seemed a secure guarantee that he would never cast off a woman who really loved him, she knew very well that the ele- mental passion — sex-love — was his most salient trait. It was curious, she thought, that she was unable to conquer the sense of sin and shame that came to her again and again. No wife, surely, had ever loved her husband more deeply and more truly than she loved Ul- rich. The joy she took in his embrace was often as far removed from sensual pleasure as is the sky from the earth. Yet what if his love for her were to become less tem- pestuous, as in time it undoubtedly would? Or if he were to meet another woman who would arouse in him the same feelings? What then? What would be the result? Would the spiritual ties which bound him to her, or the newly conceived sensual passion for the hypo- thetical woman, be the stronger? The King's eyes were troubling him greatly these days and he would see no one. Ulrich sat with him for hours, and the Hofmarschall never left his royal master's rooms. THE GREATER JOY 205 The absence of the latter from the parlors and dining room, Fraulein von Hornung, who had a sharp tongue, as well as a sense of humor, described as a "merciful re- moval by the will of God." Alice's five days with Sylvia passed off pleasantly enough. After breakfast, Fraulein von Hornung, the plump, rosy little lady-in-waiting, and Freiherrin von El- brecht, Sylvia's secretary, accompanied their mistress to the little chintz-draped morning room in Sylvia's suite, where they sewed and embroidered and attended to their correspondence, and strummed on the piano. At half past ten several of the Aides usually put in appear- ance, and Ulrich looked in at about eleven, unless he was busy at the Clinic, which happened two mornings out of the five. Of the Aides, Lieutenant von Garde was the most pop- ular with the young women. He was dazzlingly fair, his complexion was as pink and white as a sea-shell's, and his manner was charming. Also he blushed as vividly and frequently as any girl. Alice liked him immensely and said she considered him one of the handsomest men she had ever seen. "Surely not handsomer than Prince Ulrich," cried little Fraulein von Hornung indignantly. "Now, I dote on Prince Ulrich. Ich bin hoffnungslos in den Prinzen verliebt." "Is he in love with you, also ?" asked Alice a little un- steadily. "Unfortunately not." The plump little lady-in-waiting laughed gleefully. "But, truthfully, now, Miss Vaughn, which of the two men is the more handsome? It's a perennial subject with us, so you need feel no delicacy in speakinsr your mind freely." Alice began gingerly : 206 THE GREATER JOY "Of course, Prince Ulrich is very handsome, very dis- tinguished and aristocratic-looking — vornehm, I believe you folks call it ; but Herr Lieutenant von Garde is, well — he's — I don't know just how to put it — he looks as if the sun had crusted him all over with impalpable gold." "Oh, dear, what a disappointment ! She's in love with him already!" wailed Freiherrin von Elbrecht, while Sylvia looked vastly entertained. "Nonsense!" exclaimed Alice, blushing furiously with annoyance. A pretty predicament she would be in if her remark were to be repeated to Ulrich. She suspected him of be- ing capable of Othello-like jealousy. "It certainly shatters our hopes," said Fraulein von Hornung. "We had all made up our minds you would dote on Prince Ulrich. You're so fair, you know, and the von Dettes " "Always love fair women," Alice put in quickly. Everybody laughed. "Excepting one," said Frau von Schwellenberg slyly, and Fraulein von Hornung said quite composedly, al- though Sylvia sat right beside her: "Prince Gunther." Sylvia ignored all this bantering completely. She smiled amusedly, a little indulgently, perhaps. That was all. Alice was immensely entertained. This free and easy atmosphere was very delightful and she understood that it was very different from the manner in which they all were forced to conduct themselves when the Hoftnar- schall was about. Von Garde came in unannounced. He was in undress uniform, which became him almost as well as his full dress regalia. "Good morning, ladies," he cried gaily, bowing pro- THE GREATER JOY 207 foundly in Sylvia's direction. "I have brought a posy for each of you." "As an excuse for bringing one to whom?" chirped Freiherrin von Elbrecht. "Guess/' said von Garde. "We wouldn't be so unkind as to expose your heart/' retorted Sylvia. Von Garde came and sat down on a sofa beside Alice. "How is Miss Vaughn to-day?" he inquired suavely. "Herr Adjutant!" cried Sylvia in an imperious voice. The young man was on his feet in less than a second, and saluted in military fashion. He first clicked his heels together, then threw his body forward until it was almost at right angles with his legs, swung it back again, and thrusting out his left arm to its full length, with an angular gesture and a stiffening of the elbow touched his forehead lightly with his right hand. "Zu Befehl, Hoheit!" he said. Quoth Hoheit softly: "I should like a curl of your hair." "I am overwhelmed." He rampaged about for a scissors, and came back with an enormous pair of shears which he gravely handed to Sylvia. "Good heavens, Herr Adjutant! I don't intend fleec- ing a sheep." "I beg your pardon," he said, producing a pair of tiny scissors intended for nipping the ends of cigars. Sylvia gravely clipped a curl. "It is really very pretty," she said. "Now, Fraulein von Hornung, a lock of yours, if you please." Fraulein von Hornung did not move. "What mischief are you up to now, Princess?" she demanded. 208 THE GREATER JOY "Oh, come on," said Sylvia, "don't be a marplot." Having secured a curl of Fraulein von Hornung's hair, Sylvia very seriously presented them to Ulrich when he entered a few moments later, on a silver card tray, saying : "Ulrich, you have a good eye for the shades of a woman's hair. Which is Miss Vaughn's, which Frau- lein von Hornung's?" Ulrich regarded the two curls of hair with a negligent air, and poked at them with a small finger : "Dear Sylvia," he said, "the next time you clip hair from a man's head, I suggest you clip it from the top. Even von Garde's is a bit coarse around the ears." Then he threw the hair into the fire. "Prince Ulrich," cried Fraulein von Hornung re- proachfully, "what have you done? The other curl was mine." "I am heart-broken," Ulrich smiled engagingly. "You look it, certainly." Fraulein von Hornung laughed, and made room for him beside her. He fell to admiring her fancy-work. "Herr Adjutant" said Sylvia to von Garde, "do ring the bell, and find out whether the automobile is ready. Miss Vaughn is anxious to do some sight-seeing this morning. The automobile broke down yesterday, and I do not know whether it can be used, or whether Miss Vaughn will have to go in the touring car." The automobile, it appeared, was all right, and Sylvia said sweetly: "My dear, I am sure you will pardon me for not going with you ? There are a number of letters I want to get through with this morning with Fraulein von Hornung and Freiherrin von Elbrecht." THE GREATER JOY 209 "Dear me," said Alice, "it will be rather stupid doing the town alone." Von Garde sprang to his feet. "May I offer myself as your escort ?" he said. "I have two hours at my disposal this morning before Prince Ulrich requires me. I hope you will not decline." Alice assured him she was delighted. Inwardly she was raging. What on earth made Sylvia play her a trick like that? She had not seen Ulrich that morning, and she had barely spoken to him the evening before, and now, for politeness' sake, she would have to go touring around Hohen at the side of another man. She found von Garde's companionship very delightful, however, and she enjoyed her morning thoroughly. It seemed to her that the hours spent at the side of this handsome, dashing young officer, brought her a purer at- mosphere than she had lived in for many a day. Once, when he lapsed into silence, she wondered what he would do if he learned of her relations with Ulrich. She was afraid that von Garde was becoming interested in her. A miserable feeling assailed her. "My life is a tissue of lies," she thought, and she hated herself. She felt deeply humiliated. She longed to confess to some one. She became frightened. It was madness to think of avowing to anyone that Ulrich was her lover. Also it was absurd to believe that this brilliant and wealthy young man at her side, who had awakened in her this sense of degradation, was in any sense a Joseph. Hating herself for throwing this aspersion on him, she returned home to the Palais feeling wretchedly unhappy. The clouds lifted the next day when she went home to her own rooms. Ulrich met her at the street corner. He wanted to be with her when she entered her small 210 THE GREATER JOY apartment. When Ulrich unlocked the door and pushed it open, Alice uttered an ejaculation of surprise and de- light. The walls of the sitting room were covered with rose- colored brocaded hangings, the floors were inlaid with parquetry, and the most beautiful Persian rugs Alice had ever seen covered the floor. The gilt furniture was up- holstered in old rose and tapestry; ormulu clocks and ornaments stood upon the mantel, and a huge brass can- delabra stood upon a console of inlaid satinwood. The furniture of the bedroom, hung in pale blue, was Circas- sian walnut, and the bedspread was Italian filet over pale blue satin. Plate glass windows replaced the old- fashioned four-panelled windows. "Oh, Ulrich, how lovely, how charming! How could you do it so quickly? It is like Haroun al Raschid — do you remember, when he had an entire house refurnished in one night ? Thank you so much !" "Don't I get as much as a kiss for my pains ?" "Oh, yes, of course." She came to him like an obedi- ent child. But as she kissed him she thought of the morning of the day before spent with von Garde. "May I come to-night?" he asked. "Yes, Ulrich." "At eight?" "Yes, Ulrich." "I have a lecture at three, and at five I must see von Hermhelm about the financing of an orphan asylum and some new public schools. I will be here at eight. Will we run over to Hohenhof-Lohe, and dine out, or shall we dine here ? You can order a supper from a caterer's, you know." "Just as you wish, dear." "Alice, I haven't had an uninterrupted kiss for five THE GREATER JOY 311 days, and you pretend not to know what I would prefer — a formal, conventional tete-a-tete in a public dining room, or an uninterrupted, delightful, intimate little sup- per here." His eyes were afire; the love-light in them thawed her, melted away the aloof, detached manner which she had been forced to cultivate during the past three days, and which unconsciously she had retained. She laughed, and wound her arms about his neck. "We'll sup right here." "Very well." He kissed her quickly, perfunctorily, almost, she thought. At the door he said : "You're sure you're satisfied with the arrangement? you wouldn't prefer automobiling over to Hohenhof- Lohe and a late supper at some cafe where there's good music ?" "No, stupid, no." She went to him, and kissed him on the mouth. "Don't kiss me again, Alice, I implore you I I have a lecture at three — I must keep my wits about me — don't, dear, don't— !" Laughing, he disengaged himself from her arms and fled through the open door. CHAPTER XV All morning the rain had beaten down, flagellating the pavement and flaying the bare earth in the narrow strip of garden upon which Alice's window opened, un- til it yawned and gaped like the raw edges of a flesh wound. All morning also she had worked over her German. Fraulein Metzer had severely censured her slovenly de- clensions the day before, and assailed by an undefinable shame at her inability to concentrate her attention upon matters purely intellectual, an inability that was becom- ing habitual with her, Alice had determined. to discipline herself relentlessly during the entire morning. At first her attention had strayed continuously, but she had persevered, and when the clock struck twelve, she was both surprised and gratified to find how many exer- cises she had translated, how many nouns she had de- clined, how many absurd verbs she had conjugated. "I deserve a holiday this afternoon/' she cried gaily — cried it out aloud for no other reason than to break the silence of her rooms. Then she went to the window and looked out Neither rain nor wind had abated one jot ; they seemed, if anything, to gain violence as she stood looking out upon the tumult of water swirling about like a whirlpool in the flower-beds. "How shall I relax after my labors of the morning?" she asked herself, and smiled in mute enjoyment of the conceit "By thinking of Ulrich, of course," she whis- 212 THE GREATER JOY 213 pered, and pressed her forehead, hot and burning from the morning's work, against the cold window-pane. She remembered Marie BashkirtsefFs words, and agreed with her that in a solitude where environment and luxury make for happy thoughts, a woman barely desires even the society of the man she loves. She opened the window and poured out a glass of but- termilk. Her cash capital was rapidly diminishing, and another six weeks would elapse before she could expect her next remittance from her banker at home. Ulrich had expressed his desire that she should appear at the first Court Ball of the season. The gown would cost her, she knew not what, and in her anxiety about her mone- tary affairs, she had adopted a buttermilk diet, limiting' herself to a quart of buttermilk and three unbuttered rolls a day. She was not very fond of buttermilk, and many a day she would have preferred eating and drinking nothing to eating the dry rolls and drinking the acid milk. It was merely for fear that she might lose her color or flesh that she scrupulously partook of the unappetizing liquid at meal times. For if she were to grow pale and thin, and Ulrich, by any chance, were to discover the truth — she shivered. She had seen Ulrich angry once or twice, and it was a spectacle she had no desire to see re- peated with herself as the object. So she drank and ate her meagre rations, and rinsed the glass and washed her hands. Suddenly a great feeling of unrest came upon her. She looked hungrily out into the rain. She would have loved a long, long tramp over a rough country road, such a road as is found in the Adirondacks, or the Shawungunk Ridge, or the Blue Mountains of Pennsylvania. For a few moments she battled with the temptation that beset her to don hat and coat and venture out. 214 THE GREATER JOY Common-sense triumphed. Improperly nourished for over a month, she knew she was in no condition to battle with the storm that raged without. But the desire for the keen tang of the cold, wet air was upon her, and to effectually dispose of the matter, she took off her dress, and got into a dressing gown. She hesitated over her various dressing gowns. Ul- rich had pronounced the blue Liberty satin edged with white lace and panne velvet delicious, the pink taffeta with flowers appliqued in pink satin, chic, and the white Japanese silk kimono, with butterflies brocaded in white and silver, and wistarias appliqued in pink and gold, he had termed fairy-like, "almost worthy to cover the shoulders of the most beautiful woman in the world." Was she really so very beautiful? Had she lost none of her beauty during the fast of the last .month ? She pulled down the white kimono and got into it. The sleeves were very wide, and the least gesture revealed her soft, well-rounded arms. Ulrich had praised it for this feature. She remembered how he had kissed her inner arm, in the little soft hollow formed by the crooked elbow, the last time she had worn it. Suddenly, barely knowing what she was doing, quite spontaneously, she lifted her arm and kissed it quickly in the same place where his lips had lingered in voluptuous enjoy- ment. She seated herself before the mirror and regarded her- self critically. The most censorious of judges could have taken no exception to the exquisite bloom upon her cheek, the humid eyes, the coral-tipped lips, the soft swell of the bosom. Nodding at the image in the glass, she said sooth- ingly: THE GREATER JOY 215 "You're just as beautiful as ever you were, dear." Then suddenly a wave of weariness and disgust passed over her. What an existence ! Would it always be like this? Would she always tremble the moment she was not in immediate proximity to him, for fear that she might lose her beauty, and by losing that, lose him ? Was she not lowering herself, and abasing herself by perpetu- ally entertaining this almost morbid desire to be physic- ally pleasing to the man she loved ? How long would he love her? She him? Did she really love him or was she merely in love with him ? That was a burning ques- tion that had presented itself to her again and again in her hours of solitude, and strange to say, it was of more telling importance to her than whether his sentiments for her were based upon mere physical infatuation or were of the deeper, abiding kind. She felt she would hate very much less to have him desire to break with her than to desire to break with him. And yet she was not certain of this, either. So far she had not been jealous of him. There had been no occasion. Suddenly she thought of von Garde. She was certain that where he once gave his love, his love would remain. She did not know what particular thing had given her such a high notion of this young officer. But she felt instinctively that he was a man a woman could trust — trust to the uttermost. She almost envied the woman whom he would love and marry. No heart-burnings for her such as she was hourly passing through. Where Ul- rich was compelling, commanding, almost insolently dom- inant, von Garde was ingratiating, winning, engaging. Again she envied the woman whom he would love. Sud- denly it occurred to her that she might be that woman. "I hope not, I hope not," she murmured. The mood passed. She forgot about von Garde. She 216 THE GREATER JOY ,now thought of Ulrich only. She sat at the window in her white kimono, but she no longer saw the rain. It was ridiculous to wear that exquisite white kimono on a rainy afternoon. She had been riotously extrava- gant when she had bought it. She had paid over three hundred dollars for it, and it had been her bridal kimono ; and that association, and also because Ulrich had kissed the little hollow in her arm when she last wore it, made her happy in feeling its touch upon her skin. The mem- ory of that kiss was so poignantly recent. It seemed to her, because of this, that she achieved almost a physical nearness to him. So she sat down in it and began em- broidering on a white centrepiece. It would probably last as long as her small bank account — and after that — again she shivered. "Apres moi le deluge," she mur- mured. It was an expression she had picked up from Ulrich, like many others. Ulrich loved to see her embroider. He said it made him think of beautiful, frail Mary Stuart, who had been so fond of the tapestry frame, because in embroidering, her long, slender, tapering fingers showed to advantage. [And then he had minutely examined Alice's fingers, and pronounced them quite perfect. "Very aristocratic, and denoting a keen love of the artistic." And he had kissed each finger separately. And when he had finished kiss- ing them, he had kissed her under the chin. He had spoken of the lovers of Mary Stuart, and how the insou- ciant enchantress, by the movements of those beautiful, waxen, delicate fingers while plying the embroidery, had, perhaps, first tangled the hearts of wicked Darnley, and gallant Chastelard, and unhappy Rizzio. Then he had asked her whether she was fond of embroidering for the same reason — to tangle men's hearts — and she had an- swered that she desired only to hold the one heart that THE GREATER JOY 217 had already become entangled with hers, because she feared that untangling them would break the weaker ves- sel — her own. Filled with these acute and intimate memories, she stitched on, not heeding how time went. How curious it was that one individual should so completely change the current of another life ! Six months ago she had not known of his existence. Now it seemed almost incred- ible that there should have been a time when he was not an integral part of her daily life, that there had been a time when she had been fancy free, had possessed her own body and her own soul. Now her entire little uni- verse revolved about him. Everything that did not con- cern him either directly in the past or present seemed dim and unreal. The familiar friends of her childhood and youth — all her early associations — seemed intangible and incredibly remote, like a landscape seen from a rapidly moving train through a curtain of driving snow. His dominion over her was the more remarkable when she reflected how little of their time, on the whole, they could spend together. During the last week he had been with her only twice, four nights ago and the night before. This morning, after leaving her, he was to motor over to Hohenhof-Lohe. His cousin, the reigning Duke, was very ill, and desired his medical opinion. Ulrich in- tended returning by train in the afternoon, and as he ex- pected to be extremely busy on sOme matters the King wished him to attend to for him during the next two days, he would probably not be able to see her for three or four days. Three days hence! Three days without him! Three days with only her German and her em- broidery and her thoughts of him! Perhaps his carriage would pass down her street on leaving the railroad station. The Grosse Bahnhofstrasse 218 THE GREATER JOY was likely to be flooded during a heavy rain. It would be a comfort to merely see his carnage or his car whisk- ing past. But the quiet of the obscure little street remained un- broken save for the splashing of the rain. Heavy footsteps suddenly tramped upstairs. There came a rap at the door. She called "herein" indetermi- nately. Had he disguised his footstep, and had he man- aged, on his way home, to stop in to see her? The door opened and a boy in a white cap and apron entered. He was drenched, cap and all. His rough, abnormally red cheeks gave the impression of cheap dye that had run through being prematurely brought in con- tact with something moist. He was loaded down with a tall case strapped together with heavy leather thongs, used for carrying dishes from restaurants. "The gentleman is coming right after me/* he an- nounced. Ulrich entered. He likewise was dripping wet. He was loaded down with a package evidently con- taining several bottles of wine. In her astonishment, Alice sat down limply on the couch. Ulrich laid his lin- ger on his lips to warn her from crying out his name. "I didn't think you would care particularly to go out in this rain for supper," he said, "so I stopped at a ca- terer's. He would not serve us later, so I had them send the things now." Here he winked his eye to Alice. "But, mein Herr, how could we?" said the boy ear- nestly. "We are so very busy. Princess Sylvia is giv- ing an afternoon tea to the Cabinet Ministers and their wives — it is a crazy fashion she has adopted since she was in America — and every one of us will be busy carrying and serving an hour hence, for you must know, mein THE GREATER JOT S19 Herr, we make all the Gefrorenes and bake all the Tor ten that are used at Court." Ulrich was vastly entertained. "You had better not speak so disrespectfully of any fashion set by a member of the Royal House/' he said. "Oh, as for that, my fine sir," the boy stood and laughed at Ulrich, "if it's a case of Use majesU, I've got you. You grumbled enough at our 'toadying to Court' because we couldn't oblige you an hour later." When the boy was gone, Alice approached Ulrich with extended arms, ready to fling herself about his neck. "Look out, dear, look out!" he cautioned. "I am shockingly wet. And I cannot open this top button." "Let me help you," she said. "No, no." His fingers worked nervously over the re- calcitrant button, while his eyes fairly gloated upon her. "Do let me help you, Ulrich." "No, no, you mustn't touch me till I have this coat off. I was never so wet in my life, not even in the bath-tub. Confound that button ! I shall tear it off, if I can. And to have to wait for a kiss all this time !" "You don't have to wait," she responded gaily. "But you are defending yourself against me as if I were the bubonic plague." "The bubonic plague is not nearly as dangerous as your kisses," he retorted. "Oh, blankety-blank that but- ton ! Look out, dear, your lovely kimono !" He held her off with one arm, the arm that was less wet than the other, and continued to fuss at the button. But it would not come undone. With a quick, graceful gesture, she flung back her arms. The kimono slipped from her shoulders to the floor. "Change your tailor, Ulrich ! That is the way a prop- erly made garment comes off !" 220 THE GREATER JOY "Alice!" She was in his arms, his wet face and moustache upon her soft shoulders, upon the white, warm, heaving bosom. "Alice, I thought, dearest, I would go mad if I couldn't get to see you to-day, couldn't be with you to-night " "To-night, Ulrich — you have a Cabinet Meeting at eight to-night." "Yes, I have, at least I should have had. I have post- poned it until to-morrow morning." "How did you find the Grand-duke at Hohenhof- Lohe?" "My cousin is dying by inches. I can do nothing but alleviate his suffering. He may last ten years more. Do you know what I did, Alice, about that plaguey Cabinet Meeting? I telegraphed from Hohenhof-Lohe that I had missed my train, and that the meeting must be post- poned, therefore, until seven o'clock to-morrow morn- ing. Think of all those worthy Cabinet Ministers, Herm- helm and the rest, who are used to lie abed until eight o'clock, having to be ready for me by the unearthly hour of seven!" He laughed and chuckled like a school-boy playing truant. Alice had never seen him look so young, so boy- ish, so irresponsible, almost, and for the first time the quiver of pride and love that he aroused in her held the subtle note of the maternal, which sooner or later comes into the heart of every woman for the man whom she truly loves. She humored him, knowing that she was doing so, and that for once he did not know. "And you walked here in all this weather?" "Not a vehicle to be had. Besides, I dreaded recogni- tion. Those cabmen are the very devil for recognizing one. And then I wanted to stop at the caterer's." THE GREATER JOY 221 She pretended to be horrified. "You don't mean you actually went into a caterer's shop?" "My dear," he mimicked her tone of outraged propri- ety, "I had the hardihood to walk into a caterer's shop, and with this same royal mouth that is now speaking, to order the food that later on is to regale us. And such a banquet, my dear, as I've procured! We will fare as well as at Galetti's. I have champagne, and the ice for it ; chicken a la Newburgh — only they do not call it that here, and it's in a sort of thermos dish. The man vowed it would keep hot for three hours. And asparagus tips and baked artichokes, wine jelly, biscuit tortoni and sole with sauce a la Tartar." "Does the sole a la Tartar follow the biscuit tortoni on your menu ?" "You little minx! I sha'n't tell you the rest Kiss me, Alice." "Heavens — is the man mad? What else have I been doing ever since you came in?" "Look how wet you have made yourself, Alice; you will take a chill." She disengaged herself and procured a towel, with which she dried her face and arms, for she was as wet as if she had washed. But she did not think of brushing the moisture from her head, and it clung to her fair, pale halo of hair, imparting a lustre to it as of diamonds and opals. Then she slipped back into her kimono, fasten- ing it modestly about neck and waist. "What a lark this is, Ulrich!" She had entered into his spirit. "Isn't it?" He was rid of his raincoat at last, and stood examining the further degree of dampness of his clothes. 222 THE GREATER JOY "You are wet through and through. You had better take off your shoes ; and your coat." "Nonsense, I can't sit in my stocking feet and shirt sleeves." She went into the bedroom and found his smoking jacket and bedroom slippers, and brought them for him. Instantly he was on his feet, and relieved her of the things. "My dear," he remonstrated, "I really cannot permit you to wait on me." She responded demurely: "I am playing at being a proper, spiessbuergerliche Ehefrau, a good, housewifely little bourgeois." He kissed her hands fervently. "Go and change your things," she commanded, "or you will fall ill with pneumonia, and will not be able to go home, but will have to stay right here in my rooms. And the scandal I leave to your imagination." "My dear, I am so happy." Once more he laughed delightedly, and then went into the small hall room ad- joining her sleeping apartment which he used as a dress- ing room. He changed his shoes, washed, combed, and donned the velvet smoking jacket. But the few minutes that were consumed by his ablu- tions assumed gigantic proportions in their perfervid im- aginations. The acute unrest that always seized them when they were under the same roof, but not in imme- diate proximity with each other, rushed over them as incoming breakers hurl themselves upon the beach. In that brief moment of separation they seemed to have become aliens to each other, to have been whirled asun- der by some cruel fate, and now, as they stood looking at each other, he felt a violent desire to take her in his arms. THE GREATER JOY 223 i Without a word they fell into each other's arms, em- bracing rapturously, kissing each other madly, blindly, with a sort of undirected wildness, that seemed barren of accomplishment, of meaning, that seemed a mere brutal outlet for the mysterious energy which their mutual presence had engendered. "What have you been doing all day, Alice?" "I studied German all the morning." "Alone?" "Yes." "Poor child! What a dull morning you must have had!" i"My afternoon recompensed me." "What did you do in the afternoon — read?" "No, I thought." "Thought — hm." He turned up his nose disdainfully. "Why not improve yourself by reading?" he queried in a grandfatherly way which he sometimes adopted to tease her. "How can I improve my mind more than by thinking of you ?" she asked demurely. The color surged to his face. "You are fond of me, aren't you, dear?" he asked caressingly. He was still standing, and again something in his man- ner gave her the impression of youth — as if he were not merely as young as herself but as untouched by life. It was a delicious sensation. She was delighted to have discovered this side of him. Primarily he always awed her. She had never felt quite certain of him. He had seemed so experienced, so sure of himself, so much the man of the world, and his dignity, his self-possession, had always appeared so perfect, so finely polished. Even when he had kissed her in the moments of his most ar- 224. THE GREATER JOY dent wooing, even in his embrace, she had seemed to her- self a green, callow little girl as compared with him and all his little elegances of manner. Often and often she wondered what he, of all men, should have seen in her to love as he did, who knew nothing of the great world to which he had been born, and who, perhaps, if confronted with it, would be a stupid, sodden failure in spite of her beauty, which, of course, she could not help but know was undeniable. At such times a crucifying fear had come over her, and a little voice seemed to tap out the words somewhere at the base of her brain, and commu- nicate them to her ears: "What if he is only amusing himself with you after all?" In her saner moments it had seemed to her that that, of course, was all, that he was merely amusing himself for a little while, and that she must make the best of that little period while it lasted. But she did not desire to be sane — not on that score — and she discouraged these thoughts from intruding upon her consciousness. But the memory of them lay tucked away in her heart, and now the memory of them suddenly made her happy, for she saw that at heart he was younger than she had sup- posed, that he was quite boyish. The worldly wise ve- neer had dropped away from him for once and she had penetrated at last to the real man. Together they sat down upon the couch. Tenderly he said: "What is the matter with you, my darling? I have never seen you so mischievous." He took her hands in his, and clasped them together, folding them in his. His eyes were dancing. The little flashes of light that they always sent forth the moment he looked at her seemed like a sunbeam afloat in a purling brook. And THE GREATER JOY 225 she could not have said how the thought came to her out of the unfathomable chaos where all thought is born, but at the moment as she gazed upon this polished, reserved, grave man who had suddenly been transformed into a great, mischievous, lovable boy, it seemed to her that pre- cisely such would be the image, the expression, the charm, the glamour of his son, when he would have one. And together with that thought came the bitter realiza- tion that she would never be able to bear him that child, that son. That greater joy would be denied her! It was a moment of intolerable anguish. Perhaps only at this moment did she realize how deeply and truly she loved the man. In her terror lest the agony she was living through be mirrored in her face, she would have withdrawn her hands from his clasp and forcibly have held her features in check to restrain them from expressing her distress. But he held her hands firmly, repeating: "What makes you so mischievous, sweetheart?" The delicious moment had passed. The sensation of youth, pristine, eternal, disembodied youth, had fled. They no longer trod on snow-capped, sunlit mountains. Once more they were in the valley — once more mere man and woman — lovers. But the valley was pleasant, too, ah, so pleasant! The delicious feeling of having him there, of having drawn him back to her after an absence of only a few hours, surged through her like old wine. "Ulrich, dearest, I am so happy you have come, that is all." She was frightened when she found she had again shown him her complete joy in him. To remove the im- pression, she sat upon his knee. It occurred to her that this did not mend matters, and she edged away from his mouth, as far as she could. 2S6 THE GREATER JOY "It's very unwise of me to tell you I am so fond of you." He was greatly amused by her assumption of a worldly wise little air as she ventilated this view. "Upon my word, and why?" "Because she who is a wise and not a foolish virgin, tries always to appear a little aloof, a little unattainable to her lover." She smiled ever so lightly as she uttered this opinion. There was drollery at the corners of her mouth, a dimple in her cheek, and roguery in her eye. "She is enchanting," he thought. He restrained him- self from kissing her. He was too much of an artist to have destroyed the possibilities of talk to which her re- mark seemed to point, by an ill-timed manifestation of passion, which might just as well be delayed. "I am sure, sweetheart, you have acquired that silly notion from some wicked Frenchman." "I thought you liked the 'silly Frenchman* yourself." "I do — immensely. But I do not take everything they say as gospel truth. Good old Balzac, honest, hard- working, plodding soul, starving and freezing in his gar- ret, inditing impossible love letters to Madame Hansa, besieged by his creditors, cajoling his landlady to get rid of them for him, and finally finding a refuge from them in a shabby, inaccessible rear-house. What did he really know of the great ladies and their lovers whom he de- scribed so glowingly?" "Why, Ulrich, dear, you always pretended to worship Balzac." "Worship him! I devoured him, just the way you did — you wise little kitten— when I was in my teens. And I am not at all sure that he did not supply part of the impetus for my amatory escapades." THE GREATER JOY %%! "Go on, dear, go on," she said. She felt an insatiable curiosity as to his "escapades," of which, as yet, he had told her so little. Modesty and discretion forbade that she question him directly con- cerning his past, but she hoped that he might inadver- tently let slip some recollection or other of those wild Paris days. She settled herself more comfortably on his knee, and then, remembering that even the most devoted knee may become cramped and uncomfortable if unduly imposed upon, and that he, perhaps, would feel embarrassment in admitting it, she slipped down to the floor, and sat be- fore him in the posture of a Hindu adoring Buddha. As he offered no remonstrance, she concluded that his knee had been cramped, and she wondered whether he appre- ciated her delicacy in removing herself opportunely. And then her native sense of humor got the better of her. The situation struck her as truly ludicrous. Try as she would, she could not choke back her merriment. Throw- ing back her shoulders, and resting herself upon the palms of her hands thrown backward, she gave vent to a peal of silvery laughter. "What is the matter with you to-day?" he demanded. "Your manner is almost Bacchanalian!" Infected by her merriment, he was laughing without having the remotest idea what she was laughing about. She bit her lips to regain her gravity. The laughter had flushed her face. It was almost more than flesh and Blood could bear to see her thus and not kiss her. "Never mind, Ulrich, dear, I am in a ridiculous mood to-day. I am so very happy because — no, I will not again commit the imprudence of which I have been guilty half a dozen times to-day, as it is." "Forget that silly notion of Balzac's, dearest. I know 228 THE GREATER JOY the passage, but cannot repeat it at random. There is no unwisdom in showing you are fond of me. Balzac was a great artist, and precisely for this reason he was never quite true to nature. He sees events, men, women, their love-affairs through his own particular prism like every other artist, whether painter, poet, novelist or musician, and it is precisely this, the ability to make others see life through the medium of his own vision, that constitutes the artist. But there are certain fictions that must be maintained. When we see an actress portrayed on the stage, we never see an actress as she actually is, as every- one will tell you who has acquaintance with actor-folk, nor do we see exactly the character which the artist had in mind when he created the figure. If the artist is at all practical he has kept his eyes riveted on the require- ments of the public, and he has fashioned the character of the actress to be a sort of composite picture of what the public wants to see and expects to see as soon as it sees from the program what the profession of this par- ticular woman is, and of what he actually wanted the character to be. "You find this trait very strongly developed in Balzac, and it is the cause of his enormous popularity. His men and women are real flesh and blood because they have individual lives and individual thoughts ; but Balzac does not give them individual emotions. There are certain stock emotions which are supposed to inform men and women, good and bad, and these stock emotions, or rather the notions of them, vary in different countries. They are sharply defined in France, where everything — man- ners, morals, wit, art — is imbued with an incisiveness and clearly-limned precision that the manners, morals, wit, art of other nations lack, because graceful emphasis is peculiar to the genius of France. THE GREATER JOY 229 "Balzac's men and women are individuals only up to a certain point. Once they fall in love, or become ambi- tious, or fall in debt, they degenerate into mere entities, and behave in the manner prescribed by French stock notions. "Thus the individual verity is sacrificed to the univer- sal. There are certain emotions which unite men, and there are other emotions which differentiate them. Love all men feel, but the desire for glory through literary at- tainment only a few men will thoroughly comprehend. By making a direct appeal to the universal emotions, as all true masters do, the artist recognizes that it is not so much his own creature or creation that interests the pub- lic, as the emotions themselves, because these emotions correspond more or less closely to the sentiments and emotions that inspire the onlooker. To secure this end, it is necessary to sacrifice certain fine nuances. All lovers must act very much alike. All young girls in love for the first time must act very much the same. The rigid adherence to this idea has made the novels of France at once the most brilliant in form and the most shallow in substance of the novels of the world. "You must realize that this is true, Alice, now that you have seen a little of life, and lived a little of life. Do you think it would make me happier if you were cold and reticent with me, or gloomy and subtle, when I come to see you, instead of being sweet and charming and natu- ral, as you invariably are?" "That's all very well, Ulrich. I don't suppose it would make you happier if I were less frank in my avowals, but I think it would make me happier in the end." She had become grave suddenly, and her gravity robbed her of her girlishness, robbed her of the moon-beam- like, naiad-like quality which usually invested her. The 230 THE GREATER JOY woman-quality was uppermost and dominant; it was sweet, adorable, delicious, yet withal almost aggressively resonant in her movements, her eyes, her voice. He be- came frightened. He knew what she meant, yet he could not resist asking: "What do you mean, Alice ? Why should you be hap- pier if you refrained from showing me your love ?" She placed an elbow on his knee, and rested her face in the cup of her hand. "It will bore you some day, my Ulrich, to hear me tell you the same thing so often, and then " "Alice, do you really believe I shall ever cease loving you?" As he spoke, he remembered his first thoughts in con- nection with her. He had thought that she would make a pleasant interlude during his stay in New York, before his return to Europe. And simultaneously he recalled what endeavors, what efforts he had been forced to em- ploy in order to win her, and that, indeed, until quite recently, he had regarded the liaison as a temporary one, as enduring three or four or five years, perhaps — still a temporary affair. And with sudden alarm he recognized the gradual change that had come over him in his atti- tude toward her, and searching his own heart he was both amazed and filled with fear because he saw therein a desire that corresponded to her own, to make sure of her indefinitely. Indefinitely — he fought blindly against a stronger, more salient word. Indefinitely was quite alarming enough. What had become of his conviction that the desire on the part of a man to perpetuate enduringly his relations with any one woman, even his own wife, was a sign of mental decay ? He had always vowed to himself that no one, man or woman, should ever usurp such a proportion THE GREATER JOY 231 of his own inwardness, as to become necessary to his ego. What if he should never be able to free himself from the shackles he had denned of his own free will? But his alarm died away as he looked at the dainty, white-clad figure kneeling before him in an adoring atti- tude. Certainly, there was nothing formidable about her. She was not a soul-destroying vampire, an insati- able harpy, such as a man might justly dread, such a one who, if in danger of being deprived of the man she covets, would be capable of Satanic, ghoulish rites in order to chain him to her. She was a tender, adorable, charming little woman, who, if told that all must end, would make no distasteful scene. In imagination he could see her lips quiver, her eyes become inscrutable with suppressed misery. That would be all. There would be no violent language, no vehemence, nothing dis- agreeable of any sort. His heart smote him. A great wave of tenderness welled up within him. It were only just to allay her anxiety. He took her by the shoulders, and folded her to his heart. "Answer me," he said, "do you really believe I can ever cease loving you ?" "Silly — not just yet. Did you think meant this very minute?" The moment was tense. Unconsciously she had sought refuge in the tender raillery which, without knowing it, she used so skilfully. He was hold'ng her very close, and the nearness of her lover subdued her voice, modu- lated it infinitesimally until it trailed into a soft, cooing sound. "Yon know, Ulrich dear, you are a very mysterious person to me." "I'm not at all complex, am I ?" 232 THE GREATER JOY "So very complex, Ulrich. Shall I tell you " "Yes, tell me all." "Sometimes, Ulrich, I think you do not care for me half as much as you pretend to. You seem so self-suffi- cient. Then again it seems to me that you care a good deal more than you say — than you — say." She had meant to say the second time "than you know/' but the still little voice at the base of her brain sounded a tocsin of warning in her ears: "Beware, do not strip your feminine, idolatrous soul entirely bare for the delectation of his hard, masculine eye. Do not allow him to read you completely — do not tell him how com- pletely you read him." "Sometimes, Alice, my love/' he said, "I am quite sure that this is true." He smothered her in kisses, and then released her. She began folding her embroidery. "Were you embroidering when I came in?" "Yes." "Then you fibbed before, when you said you had been thinking of me." "No, no," she protested, adding solemnly : "Didn't you know that embroidery is merely an excuse for a good, uninterrupted think?" She held the work out to him to admire. "It is very pretty." "Yes, I think so myself. The design is pleasing. Rococo, I think. And look, Ulrich, I have worked the flowers in the four corners in colors, the roses in blue and the forget-me-nots in pink." "Why did you do that ?" he asked in surprise. Something unusual in her voice attracted him, inter- ested him. "I thought it would give the cloth a Frenchy look," she THE GREATER JOY 233 said with submissive, downcast eyes. "When it is fin- ished, we will use it as a breakfast cloth, and we will imagine we are a shepherd and shepherdess — at Ver- sailles." He was mute with astonishment. What a change had taken place in this girl since she had placed herself in his hands three months ago ! Three months ago, if he had made the remark she had now made — in spite of her play- fulness and drollery — she would have asked him what he meant. Oh, she was charming, adorable, quite per- fect! Earnestly he said: "Do you know, dear, that you have changed immeasur- ably ?" "Yes, Ulrich, I know it. It is my love for you that has transformed me. I realize that I am different than I was. I feel different. I feel my love for you clean down to my finger-tips." He put out his hand to clasp her, but quick as light- ning, she threw the cloth over his hands, and clasping her hands over his, the linen between them, she gazed into his eyes, her own still aflame and dancing, her sweet lips pursed for a kiss. His heart began beating madly. He tried to disen- gage his hands, partially succeeded with one hand, and reversing conditions, he held down her hand with his, the linen still separating them. She uttered a sharp cry of pain. "The needle, Ulrich, the needle!" He released her at once, but the needle had bruised deep into her delicate flesh. "I am so sorry I hurt you," he exclaimed. Again desire swept over him. Uneasily he moved away from her, as though settling himself into a more comfortable position, his one wish being to commit no act 284 THE GREATER JOY of vandalism by destroying the pretty scene she was en- acting for him. Not in his wildest moments of pleasurable anticipation had he expected to so completely effect her conquest. He knew her to be clever, playful, entertaining, but he had believed that these qualities exhausted the range of her versatility, and he had distinctly expected at times to be a little bored ; he had looked forward to feeling a crav- ing for a lighter, more stimulating, less substantial en- tertainment. He had believed that as she became inured to his ca- resses, she would yield herself more fully, more willingly, to his embrace. But he had believed her temperamentally incapable of ever taking the initiative", of wooing him, of offering herself, of playing with him in this exquisitely romantic fashion. He had never believed it possible, owing to her mod- esty, which was always to him her most salient trait, which never deserted her even in the moments of most profound intoxication, of supreme physical exaltation, that she would develop her playfulness beyond the coy, demure, Quaker-like raillery which had so charmed him on the first Sunday spent together in the deserted village. He had not believed that the peculiar genius required for this was hers. It filled him with a sense of triumph, of exultation greater than any success his intellectual at- tainments had ever brought him, to realize that he had brought about this subtle change, that his brain, stimu- lating hers, had achieved this transformation. Why could he not abandon himself completely to the delicious mood in which he had found his beloved ? How different was her subjugation to that of those women who had gone before ! Not a mere fleeting subjugation this, enduring only for the brief span of pleasure, but a THE GREATER JOY 2S5 subjugation in which her heart, her braiii, her entire be- ing participated and acquiesced. He likened himself to a man who, having heard a sym- phony by Beethoven, or an overture by Wagner, rendered only through the meagre vehicle of the pianoforte, know- ing no other instrument, not guessing even that other instruments exist, is suddenly ravished by hearing the complete orchestral score, the blending of the various voices of the orchestra, the sombre richness of the 'cello, the pathos of the violin, the sweetness of the flute, the plaintiveness of the oboe, the joyousness of the trombone. His desire for her became almost insufferable. He closed his eyes, and a deep sigh, wrenched from his heart, broke from "his lips. He felt her cool fingers upon his eye-lids. He pulled her hands away from his eyes, and kissed the palms passionately. She squirmed, her self-possession gone. "Don't, Ulrich, don't, be merciful !" Panting, almost sobbing, she flung herself into his arms. He bent over to kiss her. CHAPTER XVI It had been decided between the three of them, Ul- rich, Sylvia and Alice, that the latter was to make her formal appearance on the occasion of the first Court Ball. Whatever Sylvia's shortcomings were, she was kindness personified to Alice. She went to Paris with her for the express purpose of helping her select her ball-gown. She took Alice to Paquin's and helped her decide on the gown and even got the price down from fifteen hundred francs to a thousand francs. Even that was a ruinous price, but Alice had been saving and starving, and was able to pay for it in hard cash. She was greatly worried about her financial condition. She had decided to have her banker send her her entire little fortune. But she put off from day to day writing him. Possibly, also, he would be able to sell the old homestead, but there seemed something sacrilegious to her in disposing of the old place. She could not possibly continue subsisting on her interest. That alone would not suffice to replenish her wardrobe suitably, for that "suitably," which had once been defrayed by three or four hundred dollars a year, would now require at the least ten times that sum. She forgot her worries when the ball-dress arrived, and when she surveyed herself in the overdress of gold net embroidered in pink silk and silver thread draped over pale blue chiffon over a lining of flesh-colored silk. She was too much of a woman to think of mere money at such a crowning moment. Alice was not vain, but as 236 THE GREATER JOY 237 she surveyed herself in the long pier glass, she knew that what Ulrich and young von Garde were telling her con- tinually was true. In loveliness she could hold her own with any woman in the world. Having hung it away carefully, she dressed in the tailor-made which she had bought at Redfern's the day before sailing. Then she remembered that she was really shockingly hungry. She had not eaten a meal in three days. There was a little restaurant in the Grosse Opern- strasse where they served a very fair meal for a mark, and she decided to go there and luxuriate. But she found that all the money she had left was two ten Pfen- nig pieces — not even a mark. And two weeks more to wait before her quarterly allowance would arrive! She went to the bureau and pulled open the top drawer. From this she took a small box in which she kept what little jewelry she had. There was an emerald and pearl necklace — Ulrich had bought it for her in Flor- ence — and she had not had the heart to decline it. Then there were a few brooches, lavallieres and pins of no great value, and an old-fashioned set of jewelry set in turquoise and pearls, consisting of enormous pendants and earrings — brooch, belt and shawl pins, bracelets and rings. It had been her father's wedding gift to her mother. She wrapped the set up in a linen handkerchief and thrust it into her reticule. She had done all this very quickly, as if to banish thought and self-reproach. At the door she paused before passing beyond the threshold. "Forgive me, Mother," she said half aloud, as if ad- dressing herself to some one in the room, "I love my man more than you loved yours. You would have starved for my father, but you would not have sinned for him/' 238 THE GREATER JOY She went to a pawnbroker's first, received a pittance in return for the jewelry, and then sought out the res- taurant in the Grosse Opernstrasse to partake of the Lucullan repast at eine Mark. She had hardly started eating her meal, when she be- came interested in some of the phrases spoken by three ladies engaged in an animated conversation near her. They were speaking English. "I guess the royal princes are all a pretty dissolute lot. They say this one is a perfect devil." "I am dying to see him." "You will when the Opera opens; he goes every night." "Is he the one who is a physician?" "Yes — he was in New York some time ago. They say he fell madly in love with some woman in a humble walk of life, a school-teacher, or a manicure-girl " Here the third lady who had not spoken so far, inter- vened. "No, no, a trained nurse." Alice almost choked over her food. She could not swallow a morsel. Like the wedding guest, she could not choose but listen. "But one hears nothing of her." "That is why I do not believe the story." "Perhaps she's a decent sort and keeps in the back- ground." "That sort of a woman a decent sort! Nonsense! They always get all they can out of a man. Last year his favorite was a married woman moving in Court circles. I will tell you her name some other time. But the au- gust person's infatuation for her did not survive an un- pleasant episode. The husband of the lady returned un- expectedly, and the illustrious personage was forced to THE GREATER JOY 239 seek refuge in the wardrobe, among the husband's cloth- ing, so rumor says, and as the husband smokes heavy Havanas, and the illustrious personage smokes nothing but cigarettes of a particularly dainty blend, one can image what a delightful hour he passed among hubbie's old clothes. The lady relied on her ingenuity to get her husband out of the room for a few minutes, so she could let her royal lover escape from his ignominous hiding place, but the husband went right to bed. She was forced to follow, and the illustrious personage, invisible but within distinct hearing distance, was compelled to remain wedged in among the tobacco-saturated cloth- ing." The three ladies bubbled over with merriment. Alice felt hot and cold by turns. She was unable to move. She must hear more. "Tell the other story, Mary," said the first voice ; "the other story is even funnier." "A little danseuse of the opera was his inamorata some seasons ago. She pretended to be very modest, and would not permit him to see her undressed. He pre- sented her with a little house, a pavilion, I believe they call it here, and he had the window of the bathroom so cleverly constructed that it partially opened into the air, partially into a sort of closet or pocket in the wall large enough to admit an adult person. Here, from this secluded vantage-ground, he was able to observe the lady when she stepped into her bath, and by accurately describing to her a slight blemish on her thigh, he was able to prove that he had outwitted her." Alice left the table, her food untouched. She paid her precious mark and left the place. What an experience for a woman to go through! "That sort of a woman always gets all she can out of a 240 THE GREATER JOY man." The cruel sentence reverberated in her ears, and propelled her onward in a sort of blind horror. What, after all, was there about the stories to make her so miserable? She knew what his life had been — he had boasted of it himself — why then should she take these two wretched stories to heart? Recollections of little endearments, the memory of a night when he had kissed her feet to awaken her, came rushing back upon her. A horrible jealousy began stinging and lashing her. What was the use of being in- sincere with herself? She loved Ulrich, and it drove her frantic to think that another woman had been the same to him as she was. And there were dozens of women in this very city, perhaps more, who could point to Ulrich and say, "That man was once my lover." Dozens of women ! The thought nauseated her. She tried in vain to make her- self believe that it was not jealousy that was troubling her, that it was fastidiousness. Before she had yielded herself to him, the fact that he had been living "a man's life" had appealed to her imagination, and it had flattered her vanity to be singled out by him; but since she had become his, since she realized and knew the intimacy that exists between lovers, it was insufferable to think that those lips which had kissed her mouth, her hair, her throat, her arms, had kissed the mouth, the hair, the throat, the arms of others. . . . Her imagination travelled on mercilessly. . . . She thrust the thoughts that assailed her like tongues of fire away from her. Fastidiousness — that was all it was, surely. The thought of his former loves annoyed her only as it would have harassed her to wear a garment previously worn by some one else! But she did not believe this herself. The large clock on the Neue Bahnhof struck three. THE GREATER JOY 241 In her perturbations, she had not noticed in what di- rection she was walking, or rather running, for her excitement had accelerated her gait. Fortunately she had travelled in a circle, and was near home. She ran the rest of the way, and reached her rooms in a quarter of an hour, wondering whether Ulrich had gotten there before her, for he had announced himself the day before as due at three o'clock. With a sigh of relief, she perceived that he had not yet come, as she ran up the stairs, stumbling in her haste. Five minutes later he entered her rooms. "I am late." "Yes, I was afraid you were not coming," she an- swered. He threw down his coat, without replying. She saw that he was angry. What had happened ? His face was dark with suppressed fury ; he did not even offer to kiss her. "Alice," he said violently, after a moment's pause, "this has got to stop. You — we cannot go on like this." "What do you mean ?" she managed to say. "I mean you cannot continue living here. Good heavens! Fve got to come here, my coat collar turned up, my hat down over my eyes, to avoid recognition." Alice turned deathly white. She could not speak. He began to pace the floor, punctuating his sentences by striking at the leg of table or chair with his riding whip. He broke forth again: "It is degrading for both of us ; it is making a common intrigue of our love when we might be as the gods and enjoy our love and life and all the beauty and happiness which money can buy, if it were not for your obstinacy." Until this moment she had been unable to utter a word. Now she regained the power of speech. She did not 243 THE GREATER JOY -- 1 mind seeing him angry, for he never appeared to better advantage than when he thoroughly lost his temper. "I think it would be a good deal more degrading for me, at least," she replied with considerable spirit, "if I were to allow you to keep me, to accept money from you." "Yet I accept your love, without making any return," he flared up. "What about that ? Do you suppose I am less sensitive about my debt to you than you would be about yours to me? I am making you no return, "For what?" she demanded hotly. She had turned very white again. Her voice was trembling. "For what?" she asked angrily. "For you — yourself, your love." "Oh!" — her ejaculation was a moan. "That is pre- cisely what I wanted to protect myself against. I am sorry for you if after knowing me all these months you do not yet realize that my love is not purchasable." He became tender, conciliatory, apologetic. "Alice, don't be childish. Why won't you compre- hend, dear, that it's the way of the world for a man to take care of a woman when he accepts her love ? A hus- band does it. It is right. It is natural. But you allow me to make you no return whatever. You give and give and give. You will never accept. I cannot go on like this. I am a man of wealth, a prince, and I am behav- ing toward you like a yokel. I cannot go on like this. I hate myself. I love you and cherish you more than I have ever loved or cherished anyone before. And before I have given ten times over in return for what I received to my ballet-girls, my show-girls, my singers, my demi- mondaines. I have never been in a woman's debt- " "And you hesitate to be in mine, because you class me THE GREATER JOY 243 with your ballet-girls, your singers, your demi-mon- daines " He became furious again. "Be quiet/' he cried, flourishing his whip about. So angry was he that he did not notice she was in danger of encountering it. She retreated before it. "Be quiet |" He stamped his foot. "You are twisting and turning everything I say." It was her turn to become tender and conciliatory. "Ulrich," she said soothingly, "don't let us quarrel. What has made you so angry? Come, tell me. I knew you were angry before you came in. I knew it by the way you rapped. Something has happened. Tell me what." "No, I won't tell you." He took a few more turns about the room and then came and sat down beside her. He took her hand with a gentleness that contrasted strangely with his former vehemence, and kissed it. "It's for your own sake, sweetheart," he said. "I wish I could make you understand." "Ulrich, dear, I wish you were just a plain, ordinary, everyday citizen. How happy we could be then " "I don't. I'm very fond of my rank." "Ulrich, what has happened?" He began whipping his riding boot with his whip. "That little obnoxious animal of a portier, when I came in — of course he has no idea who I am — made an impertinent remark about you and about my coming here so frequently. And the worst is I couldn't horsewhip the fellow as he deserved, or he would have called a gendarme and my identity would have been discovered and Jrour reputation irrevocably ruined." "Don't be cross, Ulrich, dear." 244 THE GREATER JOY She put her arms about his neck and kissed him softly on the cheek. He caught her to his breast. "My darling, my darling," he whispered. "Dearest, I have my new gown to show you. I hope you will like it." "The ball dress?" "Yes," "No, don't show it to me. I am sure it is quite charm- ing. And I do not want to spoil my pleasure of seeing you in it. Think, sweetheart, I have known you for over half a year; you have been my very own for four months, and I have never seen you in a ball dress." He was all gentleness now. Even as he held her in his arms, he said: "Alice, darling, don't you see that a change must be made in your mode of living?" "Ulrich, do you realize you have broken your promise to-day? You promised me before we left New York, that if I would come and live with you abroad, you would never try to force me to accept things from you. You have broken that promise." "Well, dearest," he replied with the utmost good- nature, "as long as I have already broken the promise, I might crack away at it a little more. I shall not de- sist until I get my way." "I shall be seriously vexed with you, Ulrich, if you continue in this strain." His good-humor vanished. He became angry again. His eyes flashed fire. He could not bear to have his will balked. "I am not going to allow you to impose your absurd New England conscience on me much longer." THE GREATER JOY 245 "I don't think I have imposed my absurd New Eng- land conscience on you very frequently." "No?" He was sarcastic now, and stood bowing to her with mock courtesy. "No, oh, no. You do not im- pose it on me when you force me to see you in this un- fashionable section of the city, when, for the sake of your reputation, you make me take the infernal risk every night I come here of making myself the laughing-stock of the country? Has it ever occurred to you just what a joke it would be on me if I were ever found out?" She was tempted to retort that one joke more or less of that sort should hardly matter to him. She was think- ing bitterly of the stories she had overheard that very day. But she answered quite meekly : "I will move to any part of the city that you desig- nate." "And you will allow me to pay the rent and servants ? No? Still obstinate! I thought so." He began striding about again. She wished he would not be so noisy. The old lady downstairs was deaf, to be sure, but deaf persons have an unfortunate habit of hearing things not intended for them. But she lacked the courage to caution him. As if he divined her thoughts, he turned upon her again : "It's humiliating, Alice. Why, I don't as much as dare to laugh heartily here, you have told me so often that we will be overheard." "You seem to have no desire to-day to laugh, at any rate," she replied pungently. "I have often wondered that you do not insist on a div- er's helmet for us when we kiss — to muffle the sound." "Oh, Ulrich dear, do be nice." Her lips trembled, tears came to her eyes. He said loftily : 246 THE GREATER JOY . "May I offer you your favorite cozy corner for a nice, comfortable cry? My shoulder is at your disposal." But instead of the gentle raillery which he usually employed when teasing her about her facility in crying, there was a cruel, ironic note to his voice that cut like a knife. "Alice, what have you eaten to-day ?" She pulled herself together. "What a funny question, Ulrich! You are beginning to be a frightful tyrant. Am I not to order a meal any more without having to report afterward " "I want to know of what your dinner consisted." "I never remember what I eat. It's too prosaic a topic." "Look here, Alice. Do you want me to tell you what that foul-mouthed little animal downstairs said to me to-day?" "I asked you before to tell me." "I gave him a ten-mark piece as I came in, and he said, * You're a fine fellow ; you look as if you had enough to eat yourself, and let your friend starve. But the worse a man treats a woman the better she likes him. Other- wise your handsome' — no, I won't tell you what he called you — 'wouldn't be satisfied to eat unbuttered rolls three times a day and nothing else with them, when, I bet you, my fine gentleman drinks champagne and Lau- benheimer, and eats Champignons and Pasteten/ " "How absurd!" Alice mustered a laugh, but it did not ring true in her own ears. Ulrich caught her by the wrist. "Is it true?" he asked. "Ulrich, you are a goose ! Don't, dear, you are hurt- ing me. Come, be nice. Let me show you my gown, . THE GREATER JOY 247 and you will realize that a woman who has the money to pay for such a dress does not starve herself for lack of funds." "If you show me the dress, I will cut it into shreds with my whip." She was on her way to the wardrobe to get the dress, and without turning, she halted where she stood when his words fell. What, in heaven's name, was she to do? She had never seen him like this before. He had always been so tender, so affectionate. What was wrong with him or with her to-day? Perhaps if she kissed him? She turned and walked toward him. But his face was so forbidding, his lips so narrow and cruel, that her heart quailed and she shrank back. She remembered that Syl- via had told her that her Uncle Joachim had the repu- tation of striking his women when angry. . . . She be- came confused. She became afraid. Finally she sat down miserably on a little footstool as near him as she dared. "Alice, tell me the truth." "I have never told you anything but the truth." She was amazed at the placidity with which she ut- tered the falsehood. Had she not lied to him five min- utes before when she boasted of her means? "Alice, you are the only woman I have ever loved — don't you see what misery you are inflicting upon me?" He covered his eyes with his hands. She was sur- prised to see how deeply he was stirred. In a low, dove- like voice she said : "Ulrich, I am clinging to my last bit of self-respect Give me time, dear. Perhaps I will see things differ- ently a little later on." He did not change his attitude, but sat there like de- jection personified. She leaned over, and placing her US THE GREATER JOY hands over his, tried to draw them away from his eyes. Unconsciously he resisted. She slid to her knees. "Ul- rich dear, Ulrich," but he paid no heed. Her hands dropped away from his. She sat huddled together in a forlorn little heap at his feet. Suddenly he looked up, and seeing her there, her face at his knee, he stretched out his arms to her. She threw herself into them with mad abandon. "Ulrich!" she gasped, "Ulrich, Ulrich !" It seemed as if her very soul were being sent forth to meet him as she rapidly pro- nounced his name three times over, as if she were send- ing forth the quintessence of herself to appeal to him as no mere words would possibly appeal. He took her roughly by the shoulders and pressed his fingers into her tender flesh until she winced. But there was more concentrated actual affection in his roughness than in any caress he could have bestowed upon her at this moment. They sat in silence for a moment, then he said abruptly, as if the thought had come to him sud- denly : "Alice, I told you a long time ago that if ever you de- manded the sacrifice of me I would make it without par- ley or protest. If you are not at peace with your con- science, if you are suffering, you have only to remind me of my promise/' At the word "sacrifice" the blood mounted to her face. How abysmally selfish he was! How was it possible that this man, so exquisitely delicate where her physical wellbeing and comfort were concerned, could compla- cently ride rough-shod over all her finer sensibilities? If he had begged her to marry him, instead of offering to make "the sacrifice," she would still have refused, so in- tense was her horror that he would later on regret the marriage and blame her for his unhappiness and dis- THE GREATER JOY 249 content. But she did not speak out her bitterness. She loved him too dearly. She was too much afraid that their quarrel of before might be renewed. "Do not let us speak of marriage/' she said, and springing from the floor to his knees, and bending his head forward, she began kissing his chin, his eyebrows with lingering, gliding kisses that he had taught her. Then she said : "Bend your head down, dearest, so I may kiss my little bald spot," and tilting his head forward, she began showering kisses upon his head. "Don't, don't waste all those kisses on the back of my head," he begged. Laughing, she tossed his head from her, and twirled it about so that they were face to face. But his eyes were still cold and hard, unwarmed by the flicker of love-light which she had expected to find there. She felt chilled, hurt. She wanted to say, "Why don't you kiss me, Ul- rich ?" But the woman in her rebelled. The woman had gone as far as she might without abasing herself. So she said instead: "Are you still angry, Ulrich?" He gave her a smile and laid his cheek against hers. It was a gesture of pure affection. She knew it to be such and was satisfied. A feeling of peace came over her. But he was ill at ease. He felt as if the anger that had passed through him had drained him of the capacity for passion, and he accused himself of indelicacy and cru- elty in not responding to her advances, when she had behaved with such sweetness, such humility after the harassing interview through which they had gone. He passed his hand under her arm. He felt her sigh deeply against his cheek. She fell back in his arms. Her head rested heavily upon his shoulders; her entire body 350 THE GREATER JOY relaxed. Her face was transformed. Never, he thought, looking at her with cold, discerning approval, had he seen her more supremely lovely. Why then did his pul- ses not leap at sight of her? Why did not the sight of her emotion kindle his? She uttered a moan half of pleasure, half of weariness. Slowly her eyes opened. Their expression was infinitely alluring. Her lips fell apart, revealing the gleam of her teeth, white coral be- hind the pink. He reflected that even the purest of women has in her something of the courtesan and is bound to reveal this attribute at some time or other to the man she loves. He remembered Balzac's saying that the ideal wife is the cold, pure, unapproachable companion in the eyes of the world, but her husband's desirable and passionate mistress when alone with him. Suddenly a wave of emotion swept over him, towering like the wall-like combers that rise out of the incoming tide of a stormy sea. His face approached hers with tor- turing slowness. His mouth closed upon her half-open lips. CHAPTER XVII Three days later Alice met the little Hereditary Prince for the first time. She was waiting in one of the ante- chambers on the main floor of the Palais for Sylvia, when little Eitel Egon came running into the room to pick up a runaway ball. He was a delicate, fragile-looking child, with the pale von Dette complexion and the wonderful vor. Dette eyes. His features, too, were unmistakably the features of his royal race, as Alice knew them in the faces of Sylvia and of her lover, and in all the family likenesses that stared down from the walls of the great picture gallery that adjoined the throne room, painted largely by famous painters — Largilliere, Pourbus, Lely. The little lad stood and looked at her searchingly, dis- playing quite as much vulgar curiosity in the new face as the child of any commoner. "Who are you ?" he asked. "I'm Miss Vaughn — Alice Vaughn." "What a funny name ! I shall not be able to remem- ber it unless I hear it again. Would you mind repeat- ing it?" Alice laughed and repeated "the funny name." "Is it French or Italian ?" "Neither. I give you another guess." The child flushed. He was ashamed of having blun- dered. "I am studying French and English and German, one language each day," he explained. "It confuses me 251 252 THE GREATER JOY dreadfully, but Cousin Ulrich wishes me taught in that way, and I must do what Cousin Ulrich wishes. I guess your name is English. Isn't and sometimes it seems to me that you think the only feeling that binds me to you is my passion. You seem to think that if you placed yourself under what it pleases you to term 'financial obligations' to me, it would lower you in my eyes to the level of a common courtesan. How then could you, feeling as you do, pawn this jewelry — your father's wedding gift to your mother — for the sake of perpetuating or continuing a low intrigue?" She did not reply, but a hard, dry sob came from her throat. Her eyes were large, frightened-looking and lus- trous. Two red spots showed on either cheek and THE GREATER JOY 305 warned him not to deal too harshly with her. She was not in condition to be frightened into hysterics. "Don't be so angry, Ulrich, dear," she begged again. "I am not angry, Alice. I am deeply hurt. You know as well as I do that you committed an inexcusably wicked folly in starving yourself as you have been doing. You realize, don't you, dear, that if you had taken any in- fection while weakened by innutrition, you would not have been able to fight the sickness?" "That never occurred to me, Ulrich." He sat back in his chair and contemplated her gravely. He had not yet kissed her, and her cheek, her shoulders, her arms were aching for the impact of his embrace. But he had no thought, at the moment, of caressing her. All he had said so far was inspired by genuine feeling and affection. He had been sincere. There had not been a spurious note in his words. But now, assured that no illness was impending, there leapt into the foreground of his mind the desire to immediately enter the devious paths of the comedy which was to compel her acquies- cence in financial dependence. He was anxious to settle the matter once and for all. If it would be necessary for him to submit to the hated yoke of marriage, why, submit he must. He opened fire circumspectly. He was cruelly astute, and what rendered him so dangerous an adversary was his ability to present each kernel of falsehood or insin- cerity or sophistry that happened to serve his purpose at the moment in company with so much sincerity and honesty and candor, that the iniquitous kernel was ab- sorbed, together with its self-respecting neighbors, before its true nature was perceived, much as a child will swal- low a bitter pill imbedded in a spoonful of jelly without noticing the unsavory, hard nucleus. 306 THE GREATER JOY "Alice/' he said, "I have done some hard thinking after leaving you last night, this morning I should say. I am sorry to have to say all this to you, but we must have it over. It is, of course, out of the question, that things shall continue as heretofore. As you seem de- termined to maintain your financial independence, only one way remains open for us. I have no right to ruin your life, your health, your future. Your reputation remains unblemished, and I feel that for your sake cer- tainly, and for my own also, before I grow to be still fonder of you, it is well to separate now." He had not the hardihood to look at her as he spoke. He fully expected a vigorous remonstrance, a pitiful, tearful sob, perhaps — possibly hysterics. At the least he thought she would say in a heart-broken voice, "I am not the woman to cling to you if you are tired of me." That would have given him a chance for increased diffidence of manner, and eloquent disavowal in words of his de- sire to break with her. All that, he had calculated, would bring her to her knees. And having nerved himself for this theatrical coup, it was disconcerting to have her remain calm, even disaffected. Alice knew him better than he suspected, by this time ; she had developed and matured; her horizon had wid- ened, and his strategies, once so effective and unanalyzed, were now, as a rule, more or less fluent reading. More- over, she was fully convinced of his deep love for her, and last of all, had she not decided the night before to yield this point also? She said, "Go on." "I have told you what I think," he replied. "I would like your answer." "One can reply only to questions. You have asked me none." THE GREATER JOY 307 He bit his lip and frowned, and she continued: "Do you want my opinion ?" "Yes," he said unevenly. Apart from the fact that de- feat would be humiliating, it would precipitate him into marriage which he wished to avoid. Alice was regarding him with an amused little air. "Do you know, Ulrich," she said pleasantly, "if I were less convinced of your love, I should think you were choosing a graceful way of letting me know that you were tired of me. However, I am convinced that I am quite as indispensable to your happiness as you are to mine. Then why this ridiculous little lecture that you have just preached to me? I'll do as you wish about an income, or an allowance, and an establishment or any- thing else, of course." That "of course" tucked neatly at the end of her sur- render stung him into silent fury. He made a brave effort to control his temper. It certainly was exas- perating to have her add this "of course" so diffidently, when he remembered her frequently iterated angry, hot- blooded asservations of "never." "You won't regret it?" he asked unsteadily. His victory had come to him so easily that he sus- pected it was, strictly speaking, no victory at all, merely a conjunction of circumstance and mood, and the terrific expenditure of energy in scheming and laying his snare for her now appeared utterly absurd. That stung him, too. "You won't regret it?" he asked again. "If I do," she replied with a droll smile, "I will not let you see it. And that, I think, is all that can be of in- terest to you." She had spoken without bitterness, meaning to be playful, but, after all, she did not know her lover quite 308 THE GREATER JOY as well as she supposed. There was in his nature, under the facile worldliness and cynicism which became him so well, a substratum of fineness and delicacy of perception which she had not fathomed. Also, for the first time in his self-willed, self-indulgent existence, he cared suffi- ciently for someone to be seriously hurt by an unflat- tering estimate of himself. He turned very pale. Like all strong natures, he be- came angry when hurt. She could see that he was in one of his Berserker rages, but she did not guess the ex- tent of his anger, for he averted his eyes. He walked away from her, fearing to say some irreparable thing in the first heat of anger. It flashed upon him that, for the first time, it was comprehensible to him how a man, in a fit of fury, can lay the whip across the shoulders of the woman he loves. With his back to her, standing at the foot end of the bed, he strove for mastery of him- self. "Ulnch !" she called. "Ulrich !" But he did not turn. She threw back the covers, and kneeling on the bed, caught him by the sleeve. She wound one soft arm about his, and placed the other hand on his shoulder. "Ulrich, dear." He came one step nearer. "Lie down," he said in an unnatural, choked-up voice. 'The window is open right back of you. You will take cold if you uncover yourself like that." Gently he forced her back into bed, and covered the woman whom a moment before he had believed himself capable of chastising. She made room for him to sit on the edge of the bed, but he resisted her, as she tried to pull him down, and stood before her, scarcely less forbidding than before. Her heart sank within her. THE GREATER JOY 309 "Why do you despise me so ?" he blurted forth at last. "Dearest, I don't despise you." She realized that she had excoriated him, though she did not know how. She felt abashed. Until now she had always considered herself finer fibred than he, but here she was unable to comprehend why he was taking the whole matter so absurdly to heart. Following a sudden impulse, she stooped down and kissed his hand. He wrenched it away from her. "No, Alice, no, it is my place to kiss your hand, not vour place to kiss mine." He sat down on the bed beside her. She noticed how haggard and tired he looked. She had a poignant sensation that some day he would be old, and she also, but she would love him as much as now, perhaps more. "Alice, you don't really believe that if yoti are dis- tressed it matters nothing to me?" "Of course not." "Why did you say it, then?" "Goodness, Ulrich — sheer deviltry. IVe said worse things to you before, haven't I ?" "Possibly, but I hadn't then been through what I went through last night." All his pent-up passion and distress rose in a sudden attack of emotion. His breath became labored. His frame was shaken, as with sobs. His self-control was gone. Alice averted her eyes. It did not seem right to her that she should see him thus shaken and unhinged. She wanted to help him, but she could think of nothing to say or do. She felt that she would like to kiss him, and soothe him, but a caress seemed trivial at such a moment. He appeared sacred to her because of the soul which he 310 THE GREATER JOY had so suddenly revealed. The tension became insup- portable. She sought refuge as usual in playfulness. "Ulrich, dear, may I get up after a while? Or must I remain in bed, like a naughty child that has been spanked ?" He gave her a wistful, tender, gentle smile. "My little Puritan," he said softly. His arms opened, and quite naturally she crept into them, and lay against his heart, eyes closed. What un- speakable bliss it was, to feel his arms about her again ! He bent over her, and whispered in her ear : "Heaven?" "No, Ulrich, just plain, ordinary, every-day home." Their lips met. Their blood surged in their ears, roared in their temples. For a moment, she endured his mouth — then her lips parted. Still his mouth lingered — without kissing — lingered. CHAPTER XX On the night of the ball, before retiring, the Hofmar- schall sought out the King. The King suffered from insomnia, and he found that a chat at midnight, or later, particularly if flavored with a little scandal, was con- ducive to sleep. The Master of the Ceremonies entered the Royal apartment on tiptoe, unannounced, so that, if the aged potentate was asleep, he could withdraw with- out disturbing him. But His Majesty was awake, and called out to him to come in. Von Bardolph was particularly anxious to speak to the King that night. It was far from his intention to ac- quaint his sovereign, for whom he entertained a very sincere and loyal devotion, with the scandalous state of affairs which he had discovered, and with the infamy into which one of his grandchildren was trying to drag the other. Resourceful, crafty, unhampered by squeam- ishness of conscience, the Hofmarschall felt himself to be quite capable of coping with the situation, and by say- ing a few pretty things about "the fair American" that very evening to King Egon, he hoped to protect himself against suspicion, should Sylvia, driven to desperation, turn tale-bearer. "Excellenz, is it you ?" asked the King. "Yes, your Majesty." "I have been awake for an hour, Wilhelm," said the monarch. In private these two addressed each other as in their college days, without formality or ceremony ; "I 311 313 THE GREATER JOY was sure you would have something to tell me, and so I tried to keep awake. Well ?" "You still have something to live for," responded the Hofmarschall, "the pleasure to be derived from looking at this new importation of Ulricas is worth a year of gout." "And at your age, Wilhelm ?" said the King tauntingly. "My pleasure was purely aesthetic. No, that is not true." "Now for a shameless confession," smiled the old King banteringly. The Hofmarschall continued: "It was not purely aesthetic, because it was partially mental. The young lady is not only the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, but is capable of delivering as stinging a repartee as you yourself might have desired, in your prime." "I must have her here," exclaimed the King eagerly. "As soon as I may use my eyes a little, I must have her here." "I have been thinking," said the Hofmarschall pen- sively, "that it is well for the honor of your house that the late lamented Joachim, your brother, is no longer alive." "Why?" "Seeing her, I think he would have assassinated Ul- rich," said von Bardolph quietly. The King guffawed. "I hope," he said, "that you do not compare Ulrich and that godless old libertine, Joa- chim. But to be frank with you, Wilhelm, you seem a bit smitten yourself." "Alas, no," retorted Excellenz, "but I shall sedulously pretend to be. At my age the blood no longer responds to the call of the aesthetic sense, but memory remains, THE GREATER JOY 613 and the aesthetic sense being stimulated and tickled, we old men, out of vanity, must simulate an infatuation which we are no longer capable of experiencing." A few days later, Alice was summoned to appear be- fore the King. The introduction had been postponed again and again, because of His Majesty's* poor health and failing eyesight. It was an informal morning audi- ence, and it was Princess Sylvia who presented the American, much to the mortification of von Bardolph, who had hoped to deliver some barbed sentence along with the introduction that would prick and stick like a burr. The King, standing in the embrasure of one of the tall, curtained windows, regarded Alice earnestly. "Ah," he said at last, "the Hofmarschall did not warn me sufficiently. My physician, you must know, cautioned me against looking at the sun or at anything of like radiance." "Your Majesty should remember," Alice rejoined, "that such a similar radiance may be akin to the poor radiance of the moon, shining merely with a light reflected by the sun of this country, your own kind heart." "You are charming, my dear," exclaimed the King, paternally patting her shoulder, and he bade her come and see him often, unless indeed, it would be too much of a bore for her to sit an hour or so occasionally with a lonely, sick old man. And so it happened that many a morning after that, Alice sat at the side of the huge arm-chair of the King, or at his bedside, on such mornings when he was too ill to leave his bed. She had dreaded this audience. She found, in his own words, a sick, lonely, old man, and there was something infinitely pathetic to her in the figure of the half-blind, slowly dying monarch, sur- 314 THE GREATER JOY rounded by every luxury that money could buy, by every deference and civility that his rank could impose. Some mornings he spoke about himself, his life, his youth. He had been anxious to travel, he said, but in his day Court etiquette had hedged about a prince more rig- idly than now. He envied Ulrich his opportunity of vis- iting the great, wonderful country beyond the sea. He envied Ulrich other things as well. He did not specify what these "other things" were, but he looked at Alice as keenly as his poor, rheumy, bleary eyes would permit him to do. And the girl, seeing that look of penetration, half believed that he suspected the truth. Other mornings she read to him. He was a fairly good English scholar, and he loved Shakespeare, and it was from the immortal pages of "Hamlet" or "Midsummer Nights Dream" that he bade her read oftenest. Ulrich was looking about meanwhile for her "establish- ment." Alice, in all simplicity, had imagined he would furnish some comfortable elevator apartment of six or seven rooms for her, but when she mentioned a very at- tractive apartment house in the Grosse Opernstrasse Ul- rich looked at her in such evident and disapproving amazement that, chagrined, she felt she had at last said the impossibly blatant and crude thing. Nothing less than a "villa" would do her, it seemed, a villa being the equivalent or nearly so for the English "cottage" in so far as that much-abused word is used to denote three-story mansions with colonnaded fronts, built of sandstone or granite or marble. It was not an easy matter, however, to find a suitable "villa." Some were too small, some too large, some too far from the Neues Palais, others too near the heart of the city. There was one villa which would have suited them both, although its grounds were so spacious, so magnificent its equipmen THE GREATER JOY 815 and exterior that Alice had no notion that Ulrich would rent it. He became cross whenever they passed it. "Confound it," he would say, "Banker Seligmann can afford that sort of a mansion for each of his eight daugh- ters — the youngest one receives this palace as part of her dower — and I cannot get you anything nearly as nice." Alice soothed him : "Love is content with a crust in a hut," she said. He quoted maliciously: "Love in a hut with water and a crust, Is, love forgive me, cinders, ashes, dust." "Would you have loved me less, Ulrich," she said, in a woebegone way, "if we were a poor, young couple, who had to do without sugar and butter to make two ends meet?" "I don't think I would have minded the sugar and butter," he said dryly, "but, oh, what can life mean without a valet to prepare one's bath, and without one's especial blend of cigarettes ?" "I have never had a maid to prepare my bath," said Alice humbly. "You shall have one very soon, my dear, and you will find what a zest it adds to life not to have to think of the wearisome details of living." Alice said nothing. A sudden wave of recollection came rolling over her, submerged her. She remembered that first luncheon with him in New York. It seemed to her that she had grown many years older since that day, and yet barely six months had elapsed. If anyone had then prophesied that she would consent to a liaison with this dashing foreigner, leave her friends, her work, her future — everything, in fact, for his sake, she would have accused him of lunacy. 316 THE GREATER JOY When Ulrich came that evening, he handed her a large box of bonbons. She thanked him, somewhat surprised that he brought her such a quantity of sweets, of which he did not approve. She did not open the package at once, and he said to her : "Won't you open the candy?" She untied it. A bankbook lay at the top of the box. Opening it, she gave a little gasp of surprise. He had deposited a quarter of a million of marks in her name. "Ulrich, dear, I thank you, of course, but it is, it is " She stopped, fearing to relapse into maudlin blatancy. He was standing two feet away from her in the court- liest of attitudes. "You didn't suppose," he said gently, "that I would humiliate you by asking you to accept trifling amounts, piecemeal, did you ? We will have to discuss this money matter at some time, so supposing we go at it now and get through with it. The amount deposited in your name will last you for the defraying of clothes, servants' wages, butchers' and grocers' bills, incidentals and per- sonal expenses, for approximately a year. The rental I will pay in bulk, as soon as we have found a proper loca- tion. Before the funds are exhausted, a new deposit will be made. All this will be attended to automatically. You need not worry about overdrawing the account. Use as much as you please, dear ; spend money foolishly ; nothing would please me better. That's all." With the bankbook in her hand, she crossed to him, and sat down beside him on the couch. "A quarter of a million marks, Ulrich," she said in a bewildered, awed way. "That's fifty-six thousand dol- lars. And you expect me to spend that in a year?" He laughed. THE GREATER JOY 517 "I expect, my dear," he said, "that by and by you will be complaining of the beggarly pittance that I allow you." She shook her head quite seriously. "I do not know how to thank you, Ulrich," she said. "Of course I knew you were going to treat me liberally, but I didn't anticipate you would be quite so generous." After she had spoken, it seemed to her that her words were stilted and ill-chosen, and that they must appear cold and unappreciative to him. She should at least say something about his delicacy. But try as she would, she could not find the right words. Eyes averted, she sat beside him in helpless dejection, hoping he would come to her rescue in some way. And to add to her misery, she remembered that one of Balzac's Dues brought his mistress her quarterly allowance in a bag of sweetmeats. If Ulrich had plagiarized, he had done so unconsciously; but his delicacy now seemed specious and over-subtle. Had she been his wife, would he have given her the book in just that way? She heard him laugh, and it brought her back to the situation with a start. "How unhappy we look !" he said coaxingly. "Is it so very dreadful to be asked to spend fifty-six thousand dol- lars a year just as you please?" He encircled her with his arms. Glad to escape from the scrutiny of his eyes, she sought her usual refuge on his shoulder. "You're going to be sensible, dearest, aren't you?" he asked anxiously. "I want you to be just riotously ex- travagant, a new bonnet every day, a new gown for every third day in the week. Nothing would give me more pleasure than if you were to send me extra bills from dressmaker and milliner. If you do not spend at 318 THE GREATER JOY least fifty thousand marks within a month, I shall be deeply hurt." If she had looked at his face, she would have seen that he was teasing her. But her face was hidden against his shoulder, and she walked beautifully into the trap. "Fifty thousand marks a month would be out of all proportion, Ulrich dear," she said naively, "if the quarter of a million is to last a year." "Is to last a year?" His merriment was catching. "If the beggarly pittance is to last a year! My prophecy has come true even now." He was laughing joyously, boyishly. "Ulrich dear, you are so silly." She looked at him adoringly. "Dearest, dearest, I think you are quite the nicest creature that God ever made." With mock gravity he remonstrated. "Oh, foolish little maiden! Where is the wisdom of Balzac, of Maupassant, of Daudet? Have the words of the three sages most deeply versed in love profited you nothing? Will you insist upon boring to death him whom your charm has lured, by meaningless iteration of 'I love you ?' " "Yes, I will," she said mischievously, with pretty defi- ance. "I'll say it as often as I please. I will, I will." Early the next morning Ulrich telephoned her. He had just heard at the Clinic of a very large and com- modious apartment, occupying two floors, which the lessee desired to sub-let for six months. Would she go and look at it at once ? He, of course, could not appear in the transaction at all, nor could he go to look at the rooms, and he cautioned her about pantry, kitchen, serv- ants' chambers and reception room to such an extent that she felt this to be the most monumental undertaking on which she had ever embarked. THE GREATER JOY 319 Ulrich came early in the afternoon. "Well?" he asked eagerly. "Will the apartment do?" Alice sat regarding him apparently lost in deep medi- tation. She was brimful of mischief. Moreover, she had thoroughly enjoyed her morning. It had been quite de- lightful to motor up to the swell hotel, for Ulrich had sent her an automobile, and to have one flunkey open the automobile door and another swing open the hotel gate for her, to be ushered into marvellously beautiful rooms wondrously furnished and to play the wealthy woman of the world in conversing with the Frau Kommerzienrath who had offered her gorgeous rooms to a six months' lessee — kitchen utensils, Art Nouveau furniture, Li- moges china, Sevres vases and all. "Of course," the lady had said apologetically, "we would have to ask some sort of reference of you, as we are leaving our art treasures here with you." "Naturally." Alice handed her card to the Frau Kom- merzienrath. "I can refer you to Princess Sylvia — you had better address Frau von Schwellenberg in writing." Upon hearing those magic words, "Princess Sylvia," the excellent Frau Kommerzienrath, aristocratic soul that she was, had almost kow-towed to Alice. "If I had understood your name," she assured her, "I would never have asked to be referred to anyone. Every- body knows you are a friend of the Princess." All this had vastly amused the girl, and the copious flow of information with which the lady of the house had regaled her after this little episode, had opened her eyes to a good many contingencies of housekeeping and living on the magnificent scale which would now be re- quired of her, of which she had not dreamed a half hour before. She was prepared, at any rate, to amuse herself at Ul- mo THE GREATER JOY rich's cost. Seemingly sedate and grave and conscien- tious, she was fairly overflowing with mischievousness. "There are," she said, "fourteen rooms, besides kitchen and three baths. And the servants' chambers. I think the apartment may do as well as any other." "May do?" he asked a bit impatiently. "Why may do ? Are the rooms not desirable ? They were represented to me as particularly attractive." Alice turned up her nose. "The music-room and library open on an air shaft," she said tolerantly. "Of course the air shaft is big." Ulrich was nonplussed. "It must be big," he said, "it's more of a court-yard than an air shaft. I understand they have palms and rubber plants, big ones, and ferns and all sorts of green stuff there from spring right through into winter." "Yes, I believe I did see a few potted plants," said Alice diffidently." The color mounted to his cheeks, and his companion all but betrayed herself. "The servants' quarters are the real problem," she con- tinued, swallowing her mirth at Ulrich's discomfiture. "They will hold only six servants comfortably, although the present tenant says one can manage to squeeze eight persons into them." Ulrich leaned back and folded his arms in hopeless bewilderment. "And pray," he said, "how many servants had you intended retaining in an apartment?" Alice's gravity almost collapsed like a pricked balloon oeneath that awful gaze of stern disapproval of her sud- den sumptuary desires. "I don't see, dear," she said in the insincerest of tones, the tone which an injured wife is expected to expostu- late in, "how I can do with less than ten." THE GREATER JOY 3£1 Ulrich heaved a sigh of relief mixed with incredulity. "You are learning rapidly, Alice," he said, not wholly pleased. "How do you make it ten?" "Ten and my maid. The maid, of course, sleeps on the bedroom floor with me, so as to be within beck and call." "Yes, of course, but the other ten ?" His patience was wearing thin. "The cook, the cook's helper, the dishwasher and cleaner, parlor-maid, chamber-maid, coachman, groom and three lackeys," said Alice triumphantly. "And then, of course, an extra room for the chauffeur." "Three lackeys in an apartment?" The comic horror expressed in Ulrich's face was good to behold. "Selig- mann's daughter in her villa of thirty-six rooms will not have more than four." Alice's mirth would be suppressed no longer. With a serpentine twist of her lithe body, she seated herself on his knee. "You sweet, dear, big stupid goose," she said, and be- gan humming the tune, "I was teasing, teasing, I was only teasing you." He looked at her wearily. She took his head in her arms, and crushed his face against her bosom until he was almost suffocated. "Alice, what is the matter with you ? Will you kindly answer a sensible question like a sane person?" Another serpentine twist of her agile, graceful form, and she was sitting in the furthest corner of the settee. "I am quite sane now," she announced. "What is it you wish to know ?" The sense of her beauty, the soft, sweet sensation her strong young arms had left upon his cheek suddenly went to his head. S22 THE GREATER JOY "I love you, I love you," he stammered incoherently. "And I love you, dear," she said placidly, kissing his brow. "The apartment is charming, ideal. We couldn't find a finer one. The reception rooms are large enough for a small affair. For larger receptions, more than a hundred persons, Frau Kommerzienrath tells me all the tenants use one of the private ballrooms attached to the house." "Then you will take it?" "Yes, if the rental isn't too high. Besides, they insist on my — our taking it for six months. What will we do if you find a suitable house in the meantime? I really think the apartment is so suitable that we shall not need to find a house." "You must leave that to me, Alice." "I know, dear, I do leave it to you, of course. I was thinking of the expense. This apartment will cost you quite enough. A house with a larger retinue of serv- ants will cost you a frightful sum." "The expense is my affair, not yours." "Very well," she said meekly. "Look here, Alice, you're not going to reopen that sub- ject, are you?" "Ulrich dear, you are so unreasonable. You didn't like it one little bit, did you, a minute ago, when I pre- tended to want an army of lackeys?" "My dear child," he said weakly, "I was surprised, amazed — you didn't seem yourself when you began put- ting on such airs. Besides, it is much better for you to break yourself in with a moderate-sized menage, with six or seven servants, before tackling a bigger under- taking." "I have a lot to learn," she said tentatively. "You have, but you are clever, and have a marvellous THE GREATER JOY 323 capacity for assimilation. You will learn all there is to know in a few months' time." "But what shall we do, Ulrich, if you find a house in the meantime, before the six months are up?" He laughed gaily. "What a little simpleton you are!" he said. "I shall consider ourselves very lucky if we manage to find a suit- able villa and contrive to get it furnished, all in six months." Her next sentence left him breathless with astonish- ment, brought it home to him forcibly that after all, she was very young. "Ulrich dearest, there is one thing I want so badly — please say I may have it, and don't laugh at me. I want the lackeys to have liveries of red plush all laced with gold braid. May I? Please say 'yes.' Be nice." Ulrich could not suppress his amusement. "Good Lord, child, where did you get that notion ?" "Oh, Ulrich, I just love the plush liveries the lackeys wear at the Koenigliches Palais" "But those are yellow, not red." "Where's the difference?" "Surely you're not color-blind, Alice?" "Then I can't have the red plush liveries?" He took her hand and pressed it. He did not wish to spoil her pleasure by brutally criticizing any little plan, no matter how foolish, which she might have made. "Dear little girl," he said tenderly, "it is your menage, and you may buy, and arrange, and furnish as you please." "But I want your advice, Ulrich." "Well, then, as you are an American, a rich American, as you will please remember, who has been accustomed to luxury and high living all her life, would it not be more 324 THE GREATER JOY natural for you to dress your servants in the style to which you have been accustomed always, and which, of course, is American, not European? A dark green or dark blue livery would be more in keeping with your character, wouldn't it?" "How clever you are, Ulrich!" she said admiringly. She looked at him a little enviously. "I wish I had thought of that point. It's a very good one. Yes, by all means, dark green, bottle-green liveries. And here is something you haven't thought of." The graceful curves of her body once more had re- laxed, contracted, leaving her, inexplicably propelled, upon his knee. "I think so much better when I'm on your knee," she said demurely, kittenishly. "And pray, how does sitting on my knee facilitate your mental process?" he asked sardonically. "Brings me into closer contact with your august men- tality," was her laconic reply. "Magnetic current from you to me." "What's the point you thought of?" "Strictly speaking, you folks over here, Ulrich, have no butlers. Now I'm going to have a butler, a real Eng- lish butler, such as you read about in books, and I'm going to get him from London just as soon as you can lay hands on him." "The very thing," cried Ulrich enthusiastically. "There's the Duke of Gilvarney. He's going to Africa, lion-hunting. His butler has been with him for years, and as the Duke is breaking up his establishment, we may be able to get him." "Is the Duke a friend of yours?" asked Alice. "Yes, dear, a very good friend. Blinkins is the man for you. I'll write Gilvarney to-morrow." THE GREATER JOY S£5 "Is the Duke a — a — respectable person, Ulrich ?" "My dear girl, what a question — of course he's re- spectable." She looked at him with large, wide-open eyes. He read the question in them which she had not the courage to frame in words. "Oh, as to that, of course Blinkins will come — if he's paid enough. Alice dear, you will have to quit worrying on that score." "I'm not worrying on that score, or on any other. I'm enjoying myself immensely. I'm going to like being rich, .Ulrich." "Of course you are." "And it's so much more picturesque than being poor. I've been thinking things over, Ulrich. If there's only a little money, it is manifestly the woman's duty to make the most of it. So, conversely, it must be her duty to make the most of much money. That's what I'm going to do." He kissed her passionately. But she did not tell him, as he caressed and crushed her, that her envisagement of the new world into whose maze she had wandered had taught her the priceless bit of worldly wisdom that while a man may forgive the woman who cannot live down to small means, he will unconditionally despise the woman who cannot live up to a big income. So Blinkins was sent for, servants were engaged, the apartment taken possession of, the bottle-green liveries ordered. But before Alice had had a chance to enjoy all her new grandeur, something had occurred that put the exigencies of wealth out of her mind. There had been a frightful accident in a coal-mine, and every available nurse and physician was rushed to the spot. Ulrich went as a matter of course, both in 326 THE GREATER JOY his capacity of physician and as the personal representa- tive of the King. Alice begged and implored him to be allowed to go. She expected a refusal; to her surprise he acquiesced almost immediately. She had loved him before, but seeing his tenderness, his patience, his endurance under great bodily fatigue as he moved about among the dead and the maimed, there came moments to her when her pride in him became so rampant that she thought she must stand up and cry out loud, "That man whom you all love because of his goodness and efficiency is mine, mine, mine!" And even the misery and suffering which she witnessed could not dampen her spirits. /Is there not some subtle virtue in love, some balsam from the spiritual world, that makes the heart that harbors it impervious to the ills of the world? 1 Nor did Alice spare herself. Ulrich, who had looked upon her as a fragile human blossom, marvelled at her physical stamina and steady nerves. They returned — separately — in a fortnight. Alice, ut- terly exhausted, remained in bed for forty-eight hours, of which she slept thirty-six. The next morning she dressed herself with the utmost care, intending to pre- sent herself in the King's anteroom. She had not yet finished her breakfast of chocolate and rolls, when her maid announced the Hofmarschall. Alice received him with conflicting emotions. It was apparent that he desired to appear very friendly, but the malice which informed him would out ; cupidity and sly- ness were in his eyes, and the girl, regarding him, felt an intense hatred for this man sweep over her, a hatred so fierce that it amounted almost to physical loathing. He stood before her in an attitude of utmost deference. "I have the honor," he said, "to be sent to you as mes- THE GREATER JOY 327 senger of his gracious majesty, King Egon. In recogni- tion of your admirable service during the past fortnight, the King desires to bestow upon you the title of Countess of Gortza, which has recently fallen vacant through the death of the last incumbent. The title carries with it a moderate income, about five thousand marks a year. His majesty desires you to present yourself at eleven this morning for an audience, when it will be his pleasure to formally bestow and confirm the title/' The little man paused for a moment, then continued smoothly, "I trust I may be the first to salute you as Countess of Gortza, as I shall virtually be the last person to call you by your present name, Miss Vaughn." He bowed profoundly, then advanced, kissing her finger-tips. Alice was surprised at her own fluency and composure in making her acknowledgment. When she had finished, the Hofmarschall said: "It is only fair to apprize you, Miss Vaughn, that the suggestion to give you this patent of nobility emanated from Prince Ulrich. So at least I inferred as I was called to the King's chamber immediately after the Prince had left him." Alice, believing silence to be best, said nothing. The Hofmarschall concluded : "You yourself will know in what way his Highness will prefer to have you indemnify him for this kindness." The words were as nearly a sneer as words can be. Alice pretended to misunderstand this innuendo. "I shall certainly express my appreciation of his kind- ness to the Prince," she said. "I am greatly pleased to think my poor services were sufficiently valuable to de- serve his gracious attention and comment." It was only after the "odious little animal" was gone, that the full import of his visit dawned upon Alice. 328 THE GREATER JOY Countess von Gortza! For what? For nursing some wounded and mangled men. Other nurses had done the same, yet none but herself, she knew, would receive a title in return for her services. Frau von Schwellen- berg's prophecy had come true. She grew hot and cold in quick alternation. How could Ulrich do this thing? He must have known that it would make her disastrously conspicuous. But she had no time to waste in idle meditation, and as she hur- riedly slipped into her coat and furs, a little sense of ela- tion came over her. After all, it was a fine thing to receive a title, though she was the daughter of a Repub- lic, and she could not help feeling delighted at being summoned to the King to be invested with her new honor. Suddenly it occurred to her that as Countess von Gortza she would outrank Madame von Hess, whose husband was only a baron. After that Alice forgot all about the undesirable eminence into which she was about to be thrust. All she could think of was that some day she and the Baroness would meet at a door, and that then the Baroness would have to step aside and allow her, because of her superior rank, to enter first into the room. She became foolishly, exultantly happy. The next week she and Sylvia were going to Paris. She had or- dered two new ball gowns at Paquin's and one at (Worth's, and she and the Princess were going to spend two days together being fitted and shopping. Sylvia was treating her superbly. She showed no surprise at the sudden desire for lavishness in clothes on Alice's part, and was quite ready to accompany her to Paris, for it was Alice who had suggested the trip. While she was getting ready, she remembered the de- tails of the ball gowns. The one she was in doubt about *— she might ask Paquin to take it back. The Worth THE GREATER JOY 329 gown was iridescent gauze festooned with tiny rosettes of gold braid. She remembered the carpet of gold-fish skin which Ulrich had spread in her honor on her bridal night. He would be sure to remember that when he saw the dress, and she was certain he would like it. The third gown was a chef d'ceuvre. Sylvia had really wanted it for herself, but seeing how delighted Alice was with it, she had offered to stand back, saying that it would become her very much better than herself. Alice doubted this, but in spite of her pale coloring, she had always looked well in white, and Ulrich had frequently said that he loved best to see her in white or cream-colored stuffs. The gown was made over a foundation of white taffeta silk, over this were draped two thicknesses of white silk mull. The lower thickness of mull had been tinted to show every color of the spectrum from faintest pink and palest blue to deepest purple. Paquin had assured her that an artist of no mean fame had tinted the gown, and certainly no tyro at color effects could have achieved such an illusion of light and shade. The deep purple lines were fine as hair-lines, and when the mull was spread out on the palm of the hand one could barely detect this one boldly dark fine line, but it was there, and through some subtle harmony of color, it was in no way conspicuous when draped on the figure, but merely communicated tone and dignity to the general effect. There was sus- picion of gold, a hint of silver, and when the wearer of the gown moved, the illusion was created by snow-flakes assembled into a gossamer-like fabric, or of a soap-bub- ble yielding its fragile splendor to enrich some spider- web gown. Ulrich would be sure to like it. The price was ruinous — 25,000 francs, and Sylvia, on hearing the price, said very frankly that she could not 330 THE GREATER JOY have afforded it. She seemed to take it for granted that Alice would not want to spend such a preposterous sum for one very perishable gown, for the cruel spurs of the cavalry officers would work destruction to this fairy-like fabric the first time it was worn. But Alice, with an as- sumption of utter aloofness, said : "Very well, I'll take it, if you are sure that the altera- tions can be made without injury to the gown." Paquin was sure of this, and when the transaction was all but concluded, Alice, looking up, caught sight of Sylvia's face. The Princess, visibly alarmed, took the girl aside: "Forgive me, dear," she whispered, "are you quite sure that you can afford to pay such a price for one dress?" "Quite sure," replied Alice calmly. Had not Ulrich told her that he wanted her to be riot- ously extravagant in the matter of clothes ? Besides that, the other gowns were not expensive, only four hundred and six hundred francs apiece. She meant to keep the snow-flake dress until the end of the season, and then, when she had worn each of her other gowns two or three times, she would appear in this brand new wonder-dress. She would not dare wear so splendid a gown, at any rate, before she had gained a little more aplomb, a little more assurance. She had imagined that it would distress her to spend the money her lover had supplied her with. She found to her amazement that, having accepted it, it gave her no pain to spend it ; that, indeed, she derived a good deal of enjoyment from her purchases. Suddenly it occurred to her that she was really pitifully frivolous and weak. Par- ticularly she was ashamed of herself for remembering always and always that she now ranked Madame von Hess. THE GREATER JOY 331 The Baroness happened to be in the King's morning room, where the audiences, now all informal because of his Majesty's failing health, were held, and when Alice walked through the room to leave it, it so happened that the two women met at the door, quite as she had im- agined the meeting would be. The Baroness, with a smile, fell back. There was not a vestige of annoyance on her face, as she offered to let the Countess take prece- dence over her with the gracious manner with which one would push forward a bright, ambitious child. Alice felt this keenly, and she realized with a sudden distaste for herself that she had desired to humiliate and mortify the Baroness, and that failing to effect this annoyance, her pleasure in her new toy was very appreciably impaired. Suddenly, too, various episodes from the books she had devoured in her strange, pent-up girlhood came back. In those days it had seemed to be a wonderful and a very terrible thing to be a favorite of royalty. Now it seemed neither terrible nor wonderful, but the most natural thing in the world. A revulsion of feeling set in. She was ashamed of her feeling against the Baroness. Certainly Madame von Hess had not deserved to be hated so bitterly. She had done her no harm. If harm had been done, it was she, Alice, who had worked the other woman an injury by stepping upon the canvas and precluding the possibility of Ulrich's return. Possibly that was why she hated the Baroness so furiously, because she had done her this harm, and this glimpse of the unethical possibilities of her own heart filled her with dismay. When Ulrich came that evening, he was unusually grave, even taciturn. She thanked him profusely for get- ting her the title, but she felt that her words lacked sin- cerity. He said sadly : 332 THE GREATER JOY "I don't believe you are very happy about it, Alice, and yet I had hoped to give you a very great pleasure." "You have given me great pleasure." Her voice was constrained and forced. She felt that she could not continue with him in this hypocritical key, and said boldly, "It is true I am a little afraid of the limelight." He sat down upon the couch, and drew her down be- side him. She was afraid she had hurt him. She was sorry, and to make amends, she began kissing him, em- ploying the caresses which she knew he loved best — long, lingering, hungry kisses upon the eyes, and quick, nip- ping kisses upon cheek and ear. But he did not respond. He did not even appear to notice her blandishments. "Alice, I had a reason for getting you the title. A de- cent pretext presented itself, and I vastly preferred to have the King bestow it to having grant it myself after his death. My reason is this : I felt, dear — " She could see that he was forcing himself to speak lightly, "I felt that if through some accident you were to lose your repu- tation, it would be easier for the Countess of Gortza than for Miss Vaughn to sustain the injury." "What makes you think that such an accident may occur, Ulrich ?" "Because such things happen sometimes, and it is the one blow from which ultimately I would be unable to protect you. I am very glad, Alice, that I took this step, because it brought to light a little intrigue." "What do you mean ?" she demanded anxiously. "It's an abominably awkward thing to tell you." Then, with many pauses, he told her that Sylvia had come to him in great excitement, and upon hearing that Alice was to be made a Countess had told him of von Bardolph's threat to undermine her reputation. Sylvia THE GREATER JOY 333 was certain that this business of the title would hurry the catastrophe. "Why does von Bardolph hate me so bitterly?" asked Alice. "He doesn't want me to marry you. A mesalliance at a Court at which he is Hdfmarschall! Unspeakable !" The truth flashed upon her. Quickly she said : "Then he must have guessed that Sylvia and Gunther want you to marry me, so as to put you out of the suc- cession." Ulrich looked at her in amazement. She grew crimson with bewilderment. She had never meant him to know that she knew. "How did you know of this little game of my cousins ?" "Did you know of it, Ulrich?" "Certainly. It amused me intensely. But how did you come by the knowledge — intuition ?" She was too honest to fib. "Gunther told me the night of the first Court Ball." "I admire his cheek !" he exclaimed. "So do I," smiled Alice. "It's not impertinence, or even impudence. It's just plain cheek." "Was he insulting?" There was a menace in Ulrich's voice. "If he was, I'll horsewhip the puppy." "No, no, he took it for granted that I am what I am not." Ulrich looked at her sharply. She hoped he would not ask for an explanation. If he did, she would be sure to employ the words "virtuous woman" or some other phrase that he would resent and that would send him off like a sky rocket. Evidently he understood, for he dropped the subject, saying merely : "Do you know, Alice, I have often thought that Gunther would make an excellent drummer." 334 THE GREATER JOY "I shall tell him jou said so the next time I see him." They both laughed. The laugh cleared the atmos- phere. "Does Sylvia suspect the truth ?" she demanded. "I do not know. I have wondered. Look here, dear- est, we've got to have a talk, you and I." "Aren't we having a talk?" She sidled up to him and placed her head against his shoulder. It struck her as remarkable that of the two she was the more tranquil. He made several efforts to speak, but did not succeed. She became suspicious. She moved away from him. "Ulrich," she said insistently, "has something hap- pened to my reputation already ?" "No, no," he replied, beginning to pace the floor. "Ulrich dear, I do not think the Hofmarschall would dare to carry out his threat. He wouldn't wish to offend you, I am sure." "You don't understand, dear. I am nothing to him. The race of von Dette is everything. He would sacri- fice any individual member of the royal house — because to him the individual is a negligible quantity — in order to save our race from the contamination of a mesalliance." "Ulrich, I have an idea." "What?" "Who was it, Bismarck or someone, who said that in a grave crisis tell your enemy the truth, because you will not be believed. Now let us tell the truth, to von Bar- dolph I mean, in the hope that he will believe us. Let us — you — tell him that you have no intention of marrying me." "I beg your pardon — is that statement precisely true?" "Well, then, since I do not intend capturing you — " THE GREATER JOY 535 "I would rather have you substitute the word 'marry- ing' for 'capturing,' " he said coldly. She flushed. Blatant and crude again ! When, oh, when, would she learn not to offend him with her sharp repartee ? "Very well," she said meekly. "At any rate, Ulrich, why not disarm the venomous old reptile by telling him the truth — that there is no thought of marriage between us." "My dear," he said stiffly, "do you realize what you are asking me to do ? You are asking the man who loves you above everything else in the world to brand you as I No, dear. I am bad enough, heaven knows. I may have done wrong in not marrying you. But I am not as low as all that." "I think that is a mistaken notion of honor, Ulrich. ,You would not be branding me — as you call it, in a gen- eral way. You would probably save my name. You do not imagine I am such a fool as to suppose that the serv- ants do not realize the status quo, do you ? This venom- ous spider can be of service to you. Go and tell him the truth. If he is so devoted to your race, he must have some feeling of loyalty to you, the more so, as you will be Prince Regent when the King dies. And he will cer- tainly prefer serving and pleasing you to mortifying and angering you." The surprise in Ulrich's eyes gave way to admiration. "By George !" he exclaimed, "I wouldn't have thought it of you. My dear child, if you had been born and bred at Court, you couldn't have evolved a more brilliant scheme for circumventing the old fox." "Then you'll do it?" "No, my dear, I will not." He kissed her fingers ten- derly. "Your scheme has one weak point only. It would 336 THE GREATER JOY make a cad of me. And that I cannot ver- well con- sent to." "Then " "Yes, he'll try, and he is resourceful. You see, dear, he thinks if it — about us — is generally known, it will make marriage impossible." Her eyes held a question. His nervousness suddenly passed away. He had come to the crucial point at last. "Alice, you realize, dear, don't you — that it would make marriage very difficult?" He did not give her a chance to reply, but continued hurriedly : "If it were not for the old devil, we might have pulled along nicely. You took the Court by storm. The younger set is quite wild about you — Madame von Hess, von Garde " "Baroness von Hess," said Alice quickly. All the jeal- ousy that this woman aroused in her, was immediately on the alert. "Baroness von Hess " "What is the matter?" asked Ulrich suspiciously. "Why do you repeat the name in that odd way ?" All at once the girl was very busy with the fire tongs and a recalcitrant coal. "Oh, nothing," she said carelessly, "I have barely spoken to her." "Well, you have spoken to von Garde several times." Alice laughed mirthlessly. "Yes," she said, "but you had better not count on von Garde's being of use." "W 7 hynot?" "I suppose I ought to tell you, Ulrich. Von Garde kr.s asked me to marry him." "The devil he has!" Ulrich regarded her in open- mouthed astonishment. "What did you say to him?" "What a ridiculous question, Ulrich !" THE GREATER JOY $37 "Look here, Alice, I consider this a very serious thing. Are you sure you're not fond of him?" "Ulrich !" "Answer me." "Of course not. What an expression to use, Ulrich ! One likes a man or one loves him. One isn't fond of him." "Do you like him?" "Immensely." "I hope, Alice, you do not think me jealous. A man who is jealous is doubtful of his own powers, and I never underestimate myself. On the whole, since you like him immensely, I see no reason why you shouldn't see a good deal of von Garde." "No, Ulrich, dear, I shall avoid him. He — it — oh, dear, I feel so uncomfortable when I'm with him." "Uncomfortable !" Ulrich arose, and walked through the room. "Uncomfortable," he said again. "Why, in heaven's name, should you feel uncomfortable in the presence of a man whose affection you do not reciprocate ? Women are commonly supposed to bask in the admiration and adoration of men." There was an ugly look in his face. In spite of his disavowal she realized that he was frantically jealous and suspicious. She regretted having told him. "Nevertheless, I must insist on seeing as little as pos- sible of von Garde. It wouldn't be fair to him to en- courage him to see me." Ulrich came and stood closer to her. The ugly, hungry look in his face deepened. She could see that he was restraining himself with difficulty from taking hold of her, grasping her, crushing her. For the first time she experienced a sensation of loathing and repugnance, for she saw that at the moment he saw in her one thing 338 THE GREATER JOY only, the woman who most adequately answered his re- quirements, who afforded him a degree of intoxication he had never known before. She turned her head away. "Alice, are you in love with von Garde? Are you going to marry him ?" "No, no, of course not. What silly questions, Ulrich I" "I don't believe you." "Ulrich — even if I loved him, how could I marry him ? Unless I am greatly mistaken, Lieutenant von Garde is a man who has very rigid notions of a woman's honor and virtue. And even if I loved him, you do not sup- pose I would be low enough to marry him without tell- ing him that I — that we " She broke off helplessly. "If, understanding his rigid notions of honor, you thought enough of him to humiliate yourself so far as to make a clean breast of our affair, I should say that you loved him very dearly indeed. And if, having been told, he would not be willing to marry you, it would not keep him from loving you, or you from loving him." She turned and faced him. Her temples were throb- bing furiously. She saw in his eyes the bald, naked fear of the male who thinks he is to be robbed of his mate. A cry of disgust broke from her lips. "Ulrich, how can you, how dare you insinuate such a thing? You don't suppose I would have two lovers at one time ? This is horrible ! You do not suppose I would do for any other man what I have done for you, because of your accursed rank " "If you loved him " "But I don't, I don't," she cried wildly. "I love you — you — you only." The hurt look in his face died away. A sigh of re- THE GREATER JOY 839 lief floated from his lips. He offered to put his arm about her waist, but she shrank from him. "No, Ulrich, no." "It's really too bad for von Garde, I'm sorry for him." Her lover was suave and smooth once more. Wonder- ingly, she looked at him. How did he accomplish his in- stantaneous transformations? He continued: "He would have brought so many delightful young of- ficers to your home. And you are entitled to a retinue of admirers. I have had my fling. I am eight years older than you. I have no right to deprive you of the harmless pleasures to be derived from an innocent flirtation." "I do not care to flirt." "You do not seriously mean that." "I don't think you understand, Ulrich dear, just how I love you. You do not understand, dear, that you have not merely eclipsed other men for me, but that you have completely blinded me to other men. Men are not men to me, they are just human beings who happen to dress differently from myself." "Alice?" He was genuinely touched and ashamed of himself. "Truly, dearest." She began kissing him passionately. He allowed her to rain kisses upon his mouth and eyes, for a moment before responding, then he caught her tempestuously to his breast. They were locked in each other's arms, kissing each other madly, oblivious of everything save the vehemence of their emotions and the turbulence of their blood. He was the first to withdraw from the embrace. "This will never do, dear. Your kisses paralyze my brain. And we haven't settled the matter about which I came to speak to you." 810 THE GREATER JOY "What else is there, Ulrich?" "If you feel that it would be intolerable to continue on our present footing if the story got out, I would prefer marrying you now." "I think we have settled the matter long ago, Ulrich." He was not content with this. He pressed her to con- sider the matter carefully. He repeated and reiterated ; she answered him negatively again and again. Finally, with a little sigh of weariness, she said, with a detached air that never failed to irritate him: "Really, dear, I hate to accuse you of being tedious; but this conversation is fatiguing, to say the least." Perplexed, he looked at her searchingly. There were times lately when she seemed a different woman to him from the little innocent playful girl with whom he had fallen so idiotically in love. It troubled him to think she had developed the power within the last few months to coolly create a distance between them with a few words. She sat down opposite and not very near to him, on a footstool. "Would you like to play a game of cribbage or bezique before we retire? It is only half-past nine. Are you tired?" She delivered these words, so intimate and personal and apparently affectionate with the same careless aloof- ness as before. Anyone seeing her manner would have believed her to be discussing the latest play with some casual visitor. Every fibre in his body began to tingle. Was there something of the devil in this woman, after all? "That is the worst of an affair like ours," he said bit- terly. "The keeping up of appearances." "No," she said vigorously, "that is not the worst of it. There is something far worse— at least for the woman." THE GREATER JOY 841 "What do you mean ?" She had jumped from the footstool, and was standing against the mantel. Suddenly he saw her body sway to and fro. She was crying. "Alice darling, what is wrong?" He had his arms about her, had her on his knees in a moment. "I cannot tell you, Ulrich. There are some things I cannot tell even you." "There should be nothing, sweetheart, that you can- not speak about to me." There was an ineffable goodness and grace about him as he said this. "What is it, Alice ?" He lifted her wet face to his, and kissed it passion- ately. "Tell me, darling," he whispered. She continued crying, making no effort to wipe away her tears, allowing them to stream over her face, which he was holding with one hand. "I cannot help it," she sobbed, "it is a horrible feel- ing. Perhaps it will go away again, but sometimes it seems almost a physical pain when I remember that I can never be a mother. Oh, Ulrich, Ulrich, that is hardest of all to bear! I always loved children; their delicate little bodies, their sweet, soft limbs, their rose- petal fingers and toes, and their sweet, confiding ways, the developing brain which a mother can guide and mould. Ulrich, Ulrich, it is that more than anything else that makes our love seem unhallowed, a mere sen- sual and vile instead of a sacred and pure thing. Love between man and woman is always the same, as you once said ; but if children spring from the union, if man and woman together share the duties and the higher 34# THE GREATER JOY joy that children bring, then the sordidness of that re- lation seems washed away." She began to weep again. If her face had not been so wet from her own tears she would have felt the moisture on his as he kissed her. Without intending to, she had excoriated him. He was blaming himself horribly. As a physician, if not as a man, he should have known that she was the type of woman who would take precisely this spiritualized, dematerialized view of their relations, who would crave maternity with incom- parably greater vehemence than she had craved a mate. Why had he not let her alone ? In a way he had ruined her life. He could never make her amends for the lack of children. He thought again of a morganatic marriage. But he loathed the very idea of a "left-handed alliance." His dual duty seemed to cleave him in twain; on the one side was his duty to the state, which had been dinned into his ears and drilled into his brain since childhood; on the other hand was his duty to the woman. And he had enough prescience at the moment to realize that unless he could ask her to marry him in a whole-hearted way, in a manner that betokened his earnest desire to be married, he would only add to her hurt. He suffered miserably, perhaps more than she, for hers, at the moment, was the soft luxury of grief dis- solving itself in tears — tears which the man she adored was kissing away. Suddenly she ceased weeping. She lifted her face. It shone with a strange radiance. "Ulrich, my lover, what does it matter? What does anything matter, so long as I have you?" CHAPTER XXI Early in December, — the first snow was on the earth — the old King breathed his last. The end came quickly, and von Garde, at Sylvia's request, came to in- form Alice that the Princess desired to see her as soon as possible. It was the first time the young Aide had called on her, since she had rejected his offer of marriage, and she saw from his manner that it was painful for him to meet her face to face, alone; he declined her invitation to be seated, offering as an excuse that he had a num- ber of matters to attend to for the Prince Regent. "Oh, yes," said Alice rapidly, "that is what we must call Prince Ulrich now, is it not?" After von Garde left, she stood for a few moments before descending to her car, which was waiting, lost in reflection. Prince Regent! For ten years to come Ulrich would be Regent; in all but name he would be king. His word would virtually be law, the child king himself would be subject to his rule. And Ulrich loved her! It occurred to her that the pale green tailor-made she was wearing would not be suitable to wear in appear- ing before Princess Sylvia. She summoned her maid, and changed her suit for a dark grey gown. She be- came unaccountably nervous. In order to gain time, she bade Estelle dress her hair over again, pretending it had become dishevelled in changing skirts. She believed that her nervousness was due to fear of 343 THE GREATER JOY meeting Ulrich. It was foolish to feel like this, but she dreaded horribly meeting him to-day, perhaps in the presence of half a dozen people. She would have to be conventional, and offer himj some conventional stock phrase of sympathy. It would be very trying. She hoped she would not break down. She hoped she would be able to see him alone if only for a minute. She wanted very much to be a comfort to him in this ordeal, for ordeal it was for him. He had been deeply attached to his grandfather. It occurred to her that von Garde had not told her whether the Prince Regent had already passed a decree fixing the period during which Court mourning was to be observed. It was optional with him to make that period three months or only six weeks. If he made it three months, it would be March before the Court could resume its merry-making, its dinners and dances and balls, and as the last of February terminated the Court season, she would, in that case, not be able to wear her snow-flake dress that season. Paquin had assured Syl- via and herself that a complete revolution in styles would take place before next fall, and thus the twenty- five thousand francs she had paid for the gown would be thrown away. She regretted having saved the won- der-dress instead of wearing it at the last ball. Suddenly she became aware of the trend of her thoughts, and the realization of her own shallowness sent a pang through her entire body. Good heavens, was this what she was coming to? This old man, the dead king, had been unusually kind and gracious to her ; he had heaped kindness upon kindness on her, and her one thought in connection with his death was regret that she would not be able to wear a twenty-five thousand francs ball-gown! THE GREATER JOY 345 Certainly, she had not grown to be the sort of woman into which in her naive girlhood, she had expected to mature. She wondered what Ulrich would think of her if he knew what had passed through her mind upon hearing of the King's demise. She was bitterly ashamed of herself. The heartlessness which her own inward vision had revealed to her, for such she considered it, seemed a blacker turpitude than the carnal sin of having a lover. Perhaps there was truth in the claim that "re- spectable" folks advanced. Perhaps a woman could not live an unchaste life without debilitating her entire moral make-up. But why should this be so? Why should a man be able to live a wild life and yet remain moral in other respects? Why not a woman? This seemed to her a frightful injustice. It shifted the much-discussed question of the inequality of the sexes to an entirely different footing. She resented this inequality. She rebelled, and then abruptly she told herself that such a theory was both mischievous and ab- surd, and that she might have had precisely the same thoughts if she had been Ulrich's wife. But the sus- picion that her lax life had something to do with her un- moral trend of thought persisted. She recalled what Ulrich had said about his willingness to make her his wife if at any time it became imperative for her wel- fare. Why could she not force herself to swallow her foolish pride and ask him to marry her? He was stronger than she. He was not an immoral man, as she had once supposed. There was beauty and fineness in his spiritual texture, and if she could live with him hon- estly and openly, without having to resort every day to a host of miserable subterfuges in order to keep up ap- pearances, if, best of all, she would have the right to S4<6 THE GREATER JOY become a mother, it would help her to become a better woman. If the necessity for constant prevarication and obliquity could be obviated, it would help straighten out her moral backbone. Sometimes, indeed, she thought it was not a carnal sin at all to live with a man without being his wife. Sometimes, too, she thought that Ul- rich thought as she did, and felt all this quite as keenly, and that he would have been glad if she had asked him to marry her. He lacked the courage to urge marriage on her, and that was why, whenever he offered her mar- riage, he appeared so diffident. If he ever reproached her, after marriage, the right spirit in which to accept the reproaches would be to consider them as part pun- ishment for having first lived with him before marriage. But it would be impossible to ask him at that mo- ment, when the highest honor of the state had come to him. It would be a long time to wait until Egon came of age ; ten years of qualms of conscience, of fear of los- ing him, and fear of losing her reputation. But even ten years were bound to come to an end, and if he would marry her at the end of the time, she would be satis- fied. She felt certain that the time would come when he would offer her marriage, not in the half-hearted, half-afraid, diffident way which he employed at present, but in the warm, pulsating, insistent manner he had when urging a point he truly wanted to carry. She blamed her cowardice and lack of stamina in not resisting him at the outset, in not accepting his offer of marriage instead of deciding as she did from notions of false pride and mistaken generosity and love. There were times when it was healthier, more wholesome for all concerned to exact a sacrifice than to make it. With the knowledge she now had of his character, she told herself that if she had that chapter of her life to THE GREATER JOY 347 relive, she would succeed in forcing him to ask her with all a wooer's customary eagerness instead of making himself appear as a sort of burnt offering, in case she insisted upon a marriage. Nevertheless she was not quite sure of this. She was unable to compass this now, and she had matured and developed immeasurably since then. She was not an unopened volume to him, but a book whose pages have been cut and which has been enjoyed at leisure, and there was no doubt in her mind that, no matter how dearly prized the book is whose sub- stance is known, it does not possess the magical charm, the promise of illimitable vistas which the unopened tome holds out. It seemed to her that Estelle, who consulted the mir- ror repeatedly while coiling the heavy, meerschaum- colored braids of hair about her mistress's head, must have read her thoughts. The girl knew that Ulrich was her lover. Alice paid her well, and had told her briefly that she paid such exceptional wages because she de- sired a discreet servant. The maid understood per- fectly on what terms she was serving her mistress, and why she was receiving twice as much money as she would have been paid elsewhere. Alice considered this degrading. She wondered if Estelle was a virtuous girl. If she was, she probably despised her mistress. She dismissed the maid and sat quite still, thinking. It was impossible to go to Sylvia's, feeling as she did. She arose from the chair in which she was sitting, and following a sudden impulse, slipped to her knees before the bed. She had not prayed for years, but now, full of self-loathing and disgust, feelings, which she did not at- tempt to analyze, but which affected her as nostalgia might have done, drove her to her knees. She could remember no prayer adapted to her need. 348 THE GREATER JOY She said the Lord's Prayer twice, which was all she could think of, but when she came to "and give us this day our daily bread" she faltered, and it seemed inde- cent for her, who was accepting a fortune from her lover, to repeat those words framed for the needs of the indigent, for honest workers. She began crying softly, her eyes lying against the counterpane of Venetian lace. She did not know how long she had been crying when Estelle came in. The girl shrank back on seeing her mistress on her knees, but Alice called to her to come in. She struggled to her feet. It seemed to her that there was a look of com- passion in the girl's eyes. "Countess, the Prince Regent asks if you will see him." Alice went to him immediately. "I had to come and see you for a moment, dear. No one knows I am here. They think I am in my rooms. I felt the necessity of sitting quietly at your side for a moment." "Did he suffer?" "No, dear. It was a peaceful passing away. I would rather not speak of it now." "Very well, Ulrich." "You have been crying?" "Yes." "I am glad, sweetheart, that you felt some affection for my grandfather. He was very fond of you. He spoke of you just before he died." "Did he?" she said. Her humiliation deepened. Ulrich thought she had been weeping in sorrow for the King; when in reality she had been concerned only with herself, and the best that she could have said of herself was that she had 8HE COULD BtMEMBKR NO PRAYER ADAPTED* TO*HER NEEDS. * * * ' ' ' Page 348 THE GREATER JOY 319 wept and prayed in repentance of her own callousness, but she could not tell Ulrich that. She felt instinctively that, at the moment, indelicacy would be a worse offence than untruthfulness. He continued: "Grandfather said to me : 'Ulrich, be kind to the little American girl. She is as true as gold/ " "So he knew " "Yes, he knew. But he never let me suspect it be- fore, not even when I asked him for your title." "Ulrich, I was not worthy of his kindness." She felt crushed, annihilated, abased. He pressed her hand gently. "Don't, dearest," he said. "Don't." "I don't mean because of the — usual thing. I mean in general." "We are likely to experience that feeling, dearest, when some one who has been near to us, dies. We feel the majesty of death ; it brings out what is best in us." She could not continue to dwell upon herself at the moment, and remained silent. In a little while his dis- inclination to speak vanished, and he described to her the death-bed scene. When he arose to go, she said : "Sylvia sent for me. Will you take me in your auto- mobile, or shall I go in my own?" "You had better go in your own, dear — for your own sake. I left Sylvia weeping industriously." His lips curled disdainfully. "Industriously! Aren't you a bit hard on Sylvia?" He shook his head. "No — Sylvia hasn't an unselfish, sincere spot in hef entire body." Court mourning was ^commanded" for six weeks only, 350 THE GREATER JOY Ulrich choosing the shortest term out of consideration for the younger set. So the Court went into official mourning. The great hall of state which was used as a ball-room was formally closed, the doors sealed and draped in black and pur- ple. Black and purple immersed the large entrance hall, all the semi-official rooms on the main floor, and billowed upon the exterior and along the windows of the Koen- igliches Palais and of the Neues Palais. Black and pur- ple was conspicuous everywhere to signify that the Court was officially mourning the King. The young officers and ladies of the Court flirted more clandestinely than before, and instead of playing bridge in Sylvia's morning room, they withdrew, out of defer- ence to her, to some private sitting room. At the end of six weeks, the Court automatically went out of mourning. A date was set for the last ball but one of the season. Flirtations were resumed with their old vigor; there were theatre-parties, and dinners after the opera, and weddings. The old King had dwindled into a memory, and courtiers, climbers, time-servers of both sexes who had formerly vied with each other in dragging into their conversation the words "His Maj- esty" and the "King" now mouthed and ranted about "His Royal Highness" and "the Prince Regent." It was the same old comedy that has been enacted since history first began and kings flourished and were super- seded or conquered or died. "Le Rot est mort! Vive le Roi!" "The King is dead— long live the King!"— the King, who was a delicate, precocious, nervous child of nine. Ulrich was exceedingly busy these days. He was forced to neglect his beloved Clinic, his cherished gela- tine and agra plate cultures of the diplococcus pneu- THE GREATER JOY 351 moniae and the bucolis pestis, and to neglect Alice as well. Sometimes she did not see him for a week at a time. But no matter how busy he was, no matter how important an affair of state kept him up long after mid- night, he allowed no day to go by without telephoning her. Now it was that Alice began to see the wisdom of having an entire house to herself, a house so spacious that Ulrich could have his own suite of rooms in it, a sleeping room, a work-room, a small laboratory, even. She resumed her house-hunting, and was ably seconded by Sylvia, who was ready at all times for little informal excursions of any sort. The Princess was a curious jumble of traits. When alone with one or two friends, she unbent to such a degree as to give the impression of desiring to eliminate her rank; but in public, or on semi-official occasions, she insisted upon the strictest ob- servance of and adherence to ceremony and etiquette. She forced poor old Schwellenberg, "the meal-bag," as Alice had once maliciously called her, to stand for two hours at the christening of one of Gunther's sister's chil- dren, and the poor old woman in consequence developed sciatica. Alice carried her off to her own apartment, and tended and nursed her as she would have tended and nursed a mother or a sister. The "meal-bag" thanked her with tears. Many guests Alice entertained in an informal way. Ulrich wished her to do so, and Ulrich's wish, of course, was law. Possibly the utter indifference she felt to the people who flocked about her, contributed to her suc- cess, for having no direct interest in anything or any- body, she lent a willing ear to everyone and had a spark- ling phrase ready at all times to slip into conversational gaps. 352 THE GREATER JOY "She is the best listener in Hohenhof-Hohe," said old General von Hollen, who had related anecdotes to her of the Franco-German war to which no one else would listen because they had been told and retold so often. "Which means/' sneered von Bardolph, to whom the remark had been addressed, "that she deliberately muz- zles the cleverest tongue in Europe." For von Bardolph came along with the others. He was no longer Master of Ceremonies. The morning after the old King's demise he had asked the Prince Regent to graciously accept his immediate resignation. Ulrich urged him to remain, believing it impolitic to break with him, but the old courtier remained firm in his request. It occurred to Ulrich later, in discussing the matter with Alice, that von Bardolph desired to shift his responsibility for the behavior of the younger von Dettes from his shoulders, and that his threatened machinations against her would cease with his office, but Alice had a different theory. She thought von Bar- dolph was trying to marry her to von Garde, and that he had merely refrained from causing her trouble so far as he first wished to see if he could bring about this marriage. But even when it became apparent to all who watched the little comedy, that she gave no thought to the handsome young Aide, no dynamiting occurred. Alice now began to incline to Ulrich's belief and plucked up courage. War scares have been known to blow over many and many a time. Baroness von Hess was another of Alice's frequent visitors, and the latter religiously returned her every call. Through some perversity of fate the two women were never alone. Both longed for closer acquaintanceship, yet both dreaded it. Once, when Freiherr von Bar- dolph was the only other person in the room with them, THE GREATER JOY 353 Alice fled incontinently, when she saw him preparing to leave. Why, after all, cultivate an acquaintance that would never ripen into friendship? Why seek the com- panionship of a woman whom at the bottom of her heart she hated with all her might? When the Court went out of mourning, and the little King came more into evidence, the ladies and the gentle- men attached to the royal household made every effort to pamper and spoil him. The child was inordinately vain and his ambition was as insatiable as Sylvia's. Ul- rich kept him well in the background, but in some way, probably through Egon's valet, it got about that the lit- tle King was continually entreating the Prince Regent to issue instructions that in future, the King, though a mi- nor, was to be addressed as "y°ur Majesty." This was contrary to the usage of European Courts, which or- dained that all royal children until their twelfth year were to be addressed merely as "Prince" and "You," and after the twelfth year as "your Highness." The rumor spread and the officers and the ladies-in-waiting began addressing Egon as "your Majesty." Ulrich learned of this. There was a "bloodless battle," as old Frau von Schwellenberg described it. Egon was disciplined se- verely, and was not permitted to ride or walk out with- out his tutor for a fortnight, not even through his own garden. He was also deprived of all bonbons, sweet- meats and puddings. Some said that the Prince Regent had been unkind enough to spank the little King. This was probably not true. Ulrich did not believe in pun- ishing corporally a child over five years old. Sylvia never condescended to be bothered with Egon. She and the child detested each other. Ulrich brought him to see Alice in the morning, and Gunther frequently brought the little lad with him. Gunther had acquired 354 THE GREATER JOY the habit of running in to see his "Cousinchen" once a day, and Alice grew genuinely fond of him. Once in two months, Gunther paid a flying visit to Eng- land. "I've a little cousin over there — an orphan/' he confided to Alice. "Of course she has everything that money can buy, but she's lonesome, poor little thing. And she's pathetically fond of me. So I run over to England as often as my financial condition permits, and give Mary the time of her life. When she's a little older — she's only twelve now — I want Sylvia to have her here for a month or so. ^She'll have a better time in Hohe than she has at St. James, I'll wager." One day when Egon had remained after Gunther had left, Alice, in answering his prattling, unconsciously used the expression, "Cousin Ulrich." The child looked at her in perplexity. "He is not your cousin, Countess," he said. "Every- body else calls him Prince Regent." "I spoke of him as you do," said Alice quietly. The child went back to his toys. Alice had fitted up one room for him with tin soldiers, books and games, where he could play to his heart's content. Suddenly Egon looked up. "I think," he said, "that you and Cousin Ulrich are very fond of each other." The child's perspicacity troubled her. She spoke to Ulrich about it. "I'm afraid you ought not to let Egon come and see me so often. One wouldn't imagine that such a small child could suspect " "Suspect what, dear? He knows we're not married." "Yon know as well as I do what I mean, Ulrich." "He is beginning to ask embarrassing questions. You and I were not required to start those." THE GREATER JOY 855 "What do you tell him?" "I answer him truthfully." "Ulrich!" She was horrified. "You don't mean to say that you tell a child of nine the truth about certain matters?" "Why not? You know as well as I do that when a precocious child is denied certain information, it leads to a morbid, prying, unhealthy curious habit of mind that is deadly. I have written an article for the Medizin- ische Wochensckrift on the subject after studying Egon's psychology. Here — I have it somewhere about me." He found the clipping and handed it to her. In the centre of the page was a small picture which she had not seen before. She commented upon this. "It's my medical journal face, dear. They pose me in different attitudes and varying raiment to correspond to the divers parts I play upon the stage of life." "You seem a different man, Ulrich." She went on looking at the little picture. It fascinated her. "You seem older, serious — " she faltered, and said no more. She did not like to tell him that there was a look of no- bility in the poor little photograph that was not always visible in his face. "The picture they published of you previously, half a year ago, that also seemed rather un- like you. I did a ridiculous thing, Ulrich, when I got hold of that former picture. I " she stopped short. "Yes ?" he prompted. "No, I will not tell you. I am forever telling you all the ridiculous things I do on your account." "I love to hear them. Come, sweetheart, tell me about this particular, ridiculous thing." "No, Ulrich. I am spoiling you. You never tell me the ridiculous things you do on my account. Perhaps you never do anything ridiculous for me." 356 THE GREATER JOY "Quite right," he cried gaily. "What is ridiculous, sheer nonsense, when you do it for me, is quite in order when I do it for you, because you are the cause of it." She was delighted with the obvious little compliment. She kissed him rapturously. "Now tell me about Egon, Ulrich." "Well, he asked the question with which children usu- ally open fire. How do babies happen to drift into the world?" "Yes?" "I was unprepared to answer the question, because T had not expected it yet. So I told him the stork story, embroidering it artistically, as I thought. He listened attentively. I flattered myself he was impressed. When I concluded, he said: " 'Cousin Ulrich, you told me some time ago that a gentleman never fibs/ After that, nothing remained but to tell him the truth." "How could you !" Ulrich laughed. "My little Puritan," he said tenderly, "Egon probably suspected the truth, at any rate." "Nevertheless, he ought not to come here so often, particularly when you are here. What would you do if he questioned you concerning me — us ?" "I should say to him, 'Egon, though a gentleman may always demand information of a general character from another gentleman, no gentleman asks questions of a personal nature of any one/ " Alice laughed. She said determinedly: "I think he shouldn't see so much of me." "On the contrary, I wish him to see more of you. Unless he bores you. I would like Egon to grow up under our joint influence. A boy needs not only a man's THE GREATER JOY 357 strong hand to guide him, he also needs a woman's ten- der heart to cling to. And then " he laughed cynically. "Yes?" "If von Bardolph should be ugly enough to try some devil's trick of his own to ruin your name, half the world will not believe the evidence of their own senses if it is generally known that Egon comes to see you reg- ularly." Every decent and honest instinct in Alice rose in re- bellion. "That means," she said coldly, "that you are using Egon as a cloak?" Neither she nor Ulrich guessed how near the day was when she would need every bit of evidence she could marshal in her favor. A few days before the last Court Ball of the season was to take place, Sylvia was taking tea with Alice. It so happened that they were alone, excepting for old Freiin von Schwellenberg, whose company Sylvia fre- quently preferred to that of her ladies-in-waiting, for the reason, as she avowed laughingly, that von Schwell- enberg could always be depended upon to fall asleep at the right moment. "You're going to wear the snow-flake dress, aren't you, Alice?" asked Sylvia. "You'll be the sensation of the evening. You will probably be the only woman wearing an entirely new gown." "I am not going to wear it," said Alice, with averted eyes. She could not bear the thought of the dress since the King's death. "Why not?" "The fact is, I don't think I'll want to wear it at all. I've been wanting to ask you whether you wouldn't take 358 THE GREATER JOY it off my hands. It is vastly becoming to you, more so than to me, because you are dark." "You know that's not true, Alice," replied the Prin- cess. "You are the most stunning creature any woman ever had the bad fortune to see in that gown. I couldn't wear it." "That's very nice of you, Sylvia. I shall not wear the dress. If you care for it, I shall be glad to let you have it for the price of any other gown you may have been expecting to buy — your own price, I mean." Alice felt that she was doing proper penace in mak- ing this offer. If Sylvia accepted it, as she doubtless would, her own sinful thoughts would be expiated for, for can self-abnegation in woman reach a higher notch than, after paying a fabulous sum for a gown of sur- passing beauty, to part with it to a woman almost as handsome as herself, knowing that that other woman will shine and scintillate in the feathers which would have made herself a paragon of loveliness ? But Sylvia was firm in her refusal. She had quite set her heart on seeing Alice in the gown. "You will capture every man. Positively you must wear the gown." Alice smiled. She thought she knew what particular man the Princess meant. Again the horrible, haunting fear beset her as to the stand Sylvia would take should she discover the truth. Possibly she knew even now, for had she not warned Ulrich against von Bardolph? Still, she had given Ulrich the impression of believing in Alice, and of looking upon von Bardolph's menace as merely a threat. She offered to get the dress and show it to Sylvia once more, hoping to persuade her to take it. While they were admiring it, the servant announced the Prince THE GREATER JOY 359 Regent, and Sylvia, through two half-open doors — for they were in the third room off the small reception room in which Ulrich was waiting — called out to him: "Oh, Ulrich, is it you? Countess Gortza has been showing me the loveliest gown in the world. Don't you want to see it?" "Not until I can see the loveliest woman in the world in it," he gallantly answered. Halting at the door, he looked in discreetly, as if he had never before entered the sacred precincts of a lady's boudoir. Sylvia laughed and walked into the reception room. "Such a gown!" she sighed with mock covetousness. "The foolish child now refuses to wear it." "Capriciousness," Ulrich replied in the same confiden- tial tone in which the Princess had addressed him. "You're looking uncommonly well, Sylvia. That tailor- made is vastly becoming." Sylvia kissed her finger-tips to him. "How charmingly gallant we are to-day," she said carelessly. Alice entered. Ulrich bowed more profoundly than he dared when strangers were present, and kissed her hand. Old Schwellenberg awoke at this moment. "Herr Gott in Himmel," she ejaculated with a truly tragic air, "Der Prins Regent. Ich bitte um Entschul- digung." Ulrich gravely assured her that she had not slept at all, but had merely snored, and she joined in the laugh his drollery occasioned. Ulrich had a certain fondness for the old Freiin, and his manner of treating her, a blending of courtesy and teasing mischievousness, de- lighted the old woman. Sylvia and the Freiin left soon after. 360 THE GREATER JOY "Why won't you wear the gorgeous dress of which Sylvia was speaking ?" asked Ulrich. "I have a notion it will be a sort of hoodoo," she an- swered evasively. "Nonsense !" "Ulrich, dear, I have a confession to make about that particular dress." "You paid a terrific sum for it, I suppose." "Yes, I did." And she mentioned the sum. He smiled indulgently. "She is learning fast," he thought to himself, but her adaptiveness pleased him. "If you are short in consequence," he said amiably, "all you need do is tell me." "Of course I'm not short, not yet, at any rate," she retorted with charming candor. "But there is more to my confession." Truthfully she related how troubled she had been about the dress. He listened attentively. The look of condemnation, of aversion which she feared might appear in his face, remained absent. He was not blaming her. "Of what had you been thinking just before?" he asked gravely. "I don't remember. I think I told you everything." He came and sat down beside her and took her hand in his. "No, dear, you did not tell me everything. Think, dear. Try and remember what immediately preceded your curious trend of thought." In spite of the fact that he was caressing her hand, his manner was that of the physician. Her memory remained a blank. "After von Garde left you, what did you do?" THE GREATER JOY 361 Patiently, he tried to lead back to the starting point her memory that had wandered afield. "I went to my room to dress." "And what did you think of? Of going to Sylvia?" "Yes." A smile rippled over her face. "I thought of seeing you, Ulrich, dear, and it worried me horribly to think I would have to say some ridiculous, conventional words to you in the presence of half the Court. I was afraid I would be stupid, and say something displeasing to you, and aggravate your sorrow." He put his arm about her, and drew her to him. "That was what I wanted to hear, dearest," he said. "Don't you know that when the mind has been unduly stimulated by grief, sorrow, or anxiety, it suddenly fas- tens upon some extraneous subject that lends itself to being worried over, and which furnishes a counter irri- tant ? Your 'wicked' thoughts about the dress were sim- ply mechanical reflex action. Now, dear, if you have no faith in me as a man, do at least have some confidence in me as a physician." As a consequence of the absolution Ulrich had vouch- safed her upon pathological grounds, she wore the snow- flake dress to the ball, and as Sylvia had predicted, she created a furore. She had taken half the Court by storm upon her first appearance, but now, even those who hated her, and the ranks of her enemies were by no means inconsiderable, reluctantly admitted that her beauty was peerless. "She is almost indecently beautiful," exclaimed Excel- lenz von Hermholz. "She is lovely as children imagine the snow-fairy to be," lisped von Bardolph. His little rat eyes rolled in- cessantly in their sockets. "As I have said before, Excel- S62 THE GREATER JOY lenz, 'a face to change the map of empires/ unless some- one interferes." It was noticed and commented upon that soon after he left the ballroom he went to the wine-room, where con- trary to his habit, for he neither drank nor smoked, he sat all evening, as if waiting for someone. Much later, an hour or so after supper, Ulrich asked Alice to have some refreshment in one of the small con- servatories that opened on the ballroom. She was on his arm. As they approached the conservatory a strange si- lence fell upon the room. In a crowded place, the atmos- phere heavy with the breath of many persons, and sur- charged with the emotions of many people, such a silence is prophetic of some unusual occurrence. Ulrich and Alice, delightfully busy with each other, and engaged in animated conversation, were oblivious of this strange undercurrent. A rumor was running and spreading like wild-fire, and Gunther, dispatched by Sylvia, was hur- rying across the room to intercept Ulrich and his com- panion. He was making his way as rapidly as he could, but he was impeded by the crush of people. He could not elbow them and push his way, nor could he, when he came to an open bit of floor, break into a run. He was unable to reach Ulrich. Unprepared, therefore, Alice suddenly found herself confronted by Freifrau von Garde, young von Garde's mother. This lady's manner was habitually a cross be- tween hysteria and affectation — "exaltirt" as the Ger- mans term it. The difference in manner and appearance between mother and son was one of the perennial topics of conversation in Hohe. Alice had avoided her with an instinctive shrinking. Now this woman barred her way, and her more than usually agitated manner spoke elo- quently of some unpleasantness to be disclosed. THE GREATER JOY 363 "Countess Gortza," she cried, with an exaggerated mo- tion of hands and arms, intended to convey utter despair, "I believe you are at heart a good woman, or I would not make this appeal to you. My son has struck across the mouth General von Hollen, whom, everybody knows, is the best shot in Europe — because the General coupled you name with that of a certain illustrious person. My boy believes in you. You know very well that the duel which must take place unless Herman apologizes to the General, will result in my son's death. I implore you to save my boy by telling him the truth. He will believe no one but yourself." Alice stood as if turned to stone. She was white as death. So the blow had fallen at last which she had dreaded and feared, and which she had braced herself against for a year. But the incredible swiftness with which it had fallen appalled and stunned her. She felt vaguely that she was unable to focus her attention on the problem which claimed her immediate attention. The moment was one of such intensity that she was unaware how long she stood silent, without answering. The si- lence was unbroken for a moment only, but to her, her blood throbbing tempestuously, it seemed a century. Ulrich answered for her, speaking in his softest, most languorous voice: "My dear Freifrau, your son is a gentleman and a gal- lant soldier; he would give you poor thanks for trying to rob him of the honor of protecting a virtuous woman's name." But the hysterical instincts, perhaps, too, the maternal istincts, of the great lady were too acutely aroused to be silenced so easily, though it was the Prince Regent who signified his wish that the matter be dropped. What was standing at Court, social distinction, what were all the 364. THE GREATER JOY fripperies and honor of Court life, compared to her boy's life? Her excited imagination pictured him dead. She cried menacingly : "Your Highness can scarcely say anything else — but you — Countess von Gortza, I appeal to you once more." A labyrinth seemed to open before Alice, and some one was inviting her to step over the brink. A blind force seemed to be pushing her on and on and on, and sud- denly she realized that unless she spoke the truth she would hate herself for the rest of her life with a hate that beggars the torments of purgatory. She touched her tongue to her lips. They were hard and dry. Never had it been such a physical effort to speak, so hard to frame a sentence, so difficult to sift individual words out of the chaos of language and bind them into coherent sen- tences. Her misery was pitiable. Ulrich attempted to slip his arm about her, and lead her away. She resisted, without seeming to resist. Her arm, which he tried again to place upon his, was like lead. He found it impossible without employing force. Suddenly she spoke in an unnatural, hollow voice, a voice that might have been the aural spectre of some poor, sin-laden soul, risen out of the grave to unbosom itself of a confession without which peace and rest cannot be found. "Freifrau von Garde/' she said, "you may tell your son from me that he had better apologize to General von Hollen." Ulrich did not again offer her his arm. His face was white as her own, and was convulsed with anger. He was furious, so furious, that it required every bit of his inherited breeding to keep him from giving immediate vent to his temper. He choked back his wrath, and with- out glancing at anyone, passed from the room alone. THE GREATER JOY 365 A lice saw him go, but did not realize the import of his going. The shock of being denuded of this last remnant of reputation, to which she had clung so tenaciously, had stunned her sensibilities and made a perception of any- thing else impossible. She was aware that he had gone, but his going was only part and parcel of the night- mare in which she was living. A tremor passed over her. General von Ruegen, whose studied contempt of her in the past had verged almost on brutality, stepped forward. "Countess Gortza," he said, "you are not well. May I offer you my arm?" He took her to the ladies' parlor, and sent a waiter for some wine, and a maid for her wraps. He pressed the wine upon her, but she shook her head in dumb misery in protest against drinking it. The smell of the stuff made her ill. It brought back too vividly the supper room, the sweet, heavy odor of the flowers, the laugh- ter of the women, the insinuating smiles of the men, and sweet heavens! the glances which Ulrich clandestinely bestowed upon her whenever he believed himself un- watched. "Take me to my carriage/' she begged. "Please, please get my carriage for me. I want to go home !" General von Ruegen obediently dispatched a lackey for the Countess's carriage. At this moment Baroness von Hess entered the room. She saw the glass of wine, untouched upon the table before Alice. "A glass of water will be better for her," she said in a cool, imperative voice. The General effaced himself, and waited outside until time to help the girl to her carriage, grateful to be re- lieved of other responsibilities. Baroness von Hess meanwhile was forcing her to drink a glass of water. "She is triumphing over me," thought Alice, and she 366 THE GREATER JOY recollected how bitterly she had hated this woman, but nothing was further from the Baroness's mind. "Poor little girl/' she whispered, her arm about Alice's shoulder, "poor little girl! It is hard, but it will pass. Believe me, it will pass. You love him, and he loves you." "And you?" Alice choked out the words almost unconsciously. ' "I have wanted to tell you that right along. I did not love him, and, what is of more consequence to you, he did not love me." It was impossible to doubt the Baroness's words, or the kindness which prompted her to speak at this mo- ment. She continued : "He was amusing to me — I the same to him. There was no love, none, a little passion, perhaps, the pleasure of the chase for him, of resisting for me. Does it shock you to hear a woman confess that she gave herself to a man without even the excuse of love? Remember, dear child, our morality differs from yours. To us the honor of a liaison with a prince is a great one, not ninety-nine women out of a hundred would resist it. I am, perhaps, one of the few persons here, who realize that it was no thought of gain or van- ity which made you succumb to Prince Ulrich. Now, I think, all know and all understand. And for once, our society, so cruel, so narrow, so petty, so vindictive, was rendered charitable by the magic of your personality and the purity of your love for the Prince. You will live through a few bad days, Countess, but be brave. Re- member he loves you, and if you need a friend, send for me." Alice's mind was still too hazy to attempt an analysis of the Baroness's motives. These were, in truth, wholly disinterested. She had not loved Ulrich, as she said, and THE GREATER JOY 367 the honor of the liaison with him had been too danger- ous to be indulged in indefinitely. She was thankful he was safely off her hands. "I — I — want to go home," Alice said after a moment. "I thank you, Baroness. You have been very kind." She was struggling to regain her composure. General von Ruegen appeared at the door as silently as he had vanished. He gave her his arm, and piloted her through the halls. An eloquent silence fell upon the men and women who were lounging about. He helped her into the carriage, and pushed the fluffy flounces of her gown in after her. In her perturbation, she had forgotten her gown. As he was about to close the carriage door, she laid a trembling, cold hand upon his coat sleeve. "Herr General, Excellenz," she murmured. "Is he still here? Has his car gone?" "I will go and find out," he said. He came back in a moment. "He is still here," he said. For a moment he feared she would ask him to carry a message, but she merely inclined her head, and said "Thank you" once more in a pitiful, heart-broken voice that brought the tears to the old man's eyes. He closed the door gently, feeling as if he were shutting in a corpse, shutting it in with its dead memories and its dead sins. Through the speaking tube she called to the footman, and bade him open the window. The air inside the car- riage was stifling. "Drive home through the Thiergarten" she ordered. The current of fresh air which streamed through the open window gave her some relief. Greedily she drank in the keen night air. The streets were deserted. The 368 THE GREATER JOY pavement, wet from a light rain, showed a deep leaden hue under the electric lights. The carriage rolled lightly along the Grosse Muse enstr ass e, dim, distinguished and lonely, and then lurched into the Grosse Opernstrasse, into a sudden blaze of light and noise. There had been a ball at the Grosses Opernhaus, and the opera house was belching forth its visitors. As Alice's carriage, con- spicuous by its snow-white horses, rolled by, a murmur of recognition agitated the crowd. Her excited nerves seemed to apprehend the words, "Prinz Ulrich's Ge- liebte." She grew crimson with mortification. So everybody knew! And she had held so tenaciously to her paltry, pitiful belief that no one knew, when the truth had been unmistakable to everyone — to everyone except that wretched, misguided boy. She had publicly branded herself as a scarlet woman ! Publicly branded as a scarlet woman! And her father had been a village divine! By a fantastic trick of memory there arose before her eyes a vision of the day when she had broken of! her engagement to Ned, because Sally had explained to her the nature of marriage! She remembered the horror, the shame, the unutterable disgust that had sprung up in her, that for days had not left her, that had been re- plenished as from some invisible well. She remembered she had vowed herself to celibacy that day, to abstinence from what had appeared to her as the most unthinkably terrible thing of which she had ever heard. She had been giving herself to Ulrich for almost a year. She had supposed no one knew. She had sat with him in the royal box at the Opera and theatre, in the full glare of the public gaze, and she had supposed that no one knew. She had lain in his arms at night, THE GREATER JOY 360 lulled and stilled by his caresses, and she had supposed that no one knew ! It suddenly occurred to her that he might be angry with her for speaking the truth in public, for not leav- ing it to him to arrange matters. She became horribly frightened. What, if in addition to the anguish of los- ing her last shred of self-respect, he would impose upon her the misery of his anger? She rebuked herself for harboring so absurd a suspicion. Ulrich angry with her! That was impossible, especially at such a moment. Ulrich, who was always so kind, so tactful, so careful of appearance for her sake, who had lied for her that very evening ! She became more tranquil. They were rolling along the Thum und Taxis Allee in the Thiergarten. There were few lights, and these were tiny gas jets, not elec- tric lights. The night was dark, and the poplars, taci- turn and forbidding, standing like sentinels on both sides of the Allee, assumed gigantic proportions, seemed alive, seemed leviathans ready to seize her, to carry her away to some indescribable pit, to unknown horrors. Terror swooped down upon her once more. She leaned as far back as she could, and pulling down the shades, closed her eyes to shut out the terror of the blackness outside. She seemed on the verge of madness. She thought she must surely go mad unless she could feel Ulrich \ c protecting arm about her. She began repeating his name to reassure herself, as if it were a cabalistic sign to keep away evil spirits. "Ulrich, Ulrich, Ulrich !" Thank heaven, they had left the Thiergarten and were rolling along the soft macadamized road that led to her 370 THE GREATER JOY home! In front of the house she caught a glimpse of what she thought was his car. She fairly flew up the stairs and into the lobby, trip- ping more than once in her haste. "Ulrich, Ulrich, Ulrich !" In another moment she would fling herself into his arms, would feel the warm pressure of his strong body, would feel his warm breath upon her neck. When her maid opened the door, she saw at a glance that there was no light in any of the rooms excepting in her sleep- ing room. "Where is the Prince Regent waiting V* she asked in an agitated, excited voice. The girl answered : "He is not here, Madame/' She stumbled into her room. She allowed Estelle to remove her cloak and veil and gloves, and then she dis- missed her. "Ulrich, Ulrich, Ulrich !" She repeated his name with ever increasing nervous- ness. Was it possible that he was angry? And at such a time, when her heart called for him ? "Ulrich, Ulrich, Ulrich!" Could she not, by repeating his name, send to him some telepathic message that would send him hurrying to her side ? Surely, he could not be so childish, so cruel as to harbor anger against her at such a moment ! An- ger, and why ? Anger, because she had spoken the truth when to remain silent would have meant murder? She heard the chug-chug of an approaching automo- bile. It slackened speed, it stopped. She sat quite still, waiting to hear the turning of his key in the lock. But the longed-for sound did not occur. She heard footsteps on the pavement below. Again THE GREATER JOY 371 she strained her nerves waiting, waiting for the sound of the key. And again she waited in vain. She sat on the bed, huddled together. Her gown was unbuttoned, and half hung from her shoulders. It was almost four o'clock. Still she sat and waited, uncon- scious of the chill in the room. Suddenly she sneezed. That aroused her from her reverie. She had barely suf- ficient energy left to undress herself. The chill damp- ness of the small hours of the morning seemed to creep in from out of doors. She undressed, barely brushing her beautiful hair, over which she usually loitered a good half hour, per- functorily washing her face and hands, then crept mis- erably to bed, leaving the gas burning brightly above her head. She tossed and tossed, but she could not fall asleep from thinking of him. She shivered. She was intensely cold. Why, oh, why, did he not come? Had he ever wanted her as much as she now wanted him? A spasm of pain shot through her. She thought she must go mad. She buried her face in the pillows and wept. The clock struck five. She stopped crying and tried to think. But she was incapable of crystallizing her thoughts ; they seemed merely to weave an undercurrent of pain for her heart. Could one's thoughts hurt? Madness, again. The clock struck six. After that she slept. When she awoke the clock was striking the hour — nine. Every stroke seemed to be a voice calEng "Ul- rich, Ulrich, Ulrich." Her thoughts resumed their thread at the exact point where sleep had broken it off. The illusion of continuity was so remarkable that for a Sn THE GREATER JOY moment Alice believed she had not slept at all. Then she realized and remembered. Estelle had turned out the gas while she slept, and had drawn the blinds. Alice sprang out of bed, let in some light, and in her night-gown, her feet slipperless, ran to the telephone and gave Ulrich's private number, the number which was in possession of barely half a dozen persons besides herself. Ulrich's valet answered the 'phone. "Johann, is the Prinz Regent up?" "No, Countess. He gave instructions when he re- tired that he was not to be called. ,, "When did he retire?" "At six." "At what time did he return?" Johann's voice expressed a momentary hesitation, then continued bravely : "It was a little after three, I should say, when he came home. He went directly to the labo- ratory, and when I followed him half an hour later with his cigarette case, which he had forgotten, he was pac- ing the floor, and — and " "Yes, Johann?" "It has never happened before, Countess. He would not smoke." "Johann, as soon as his Highness awakens, ask him to call me." "Yes, Countess." She replaced the receiver, and sat crouching at the escritoire, wondering what it all meant. Probably he was nerving himself to tell her he would marry her. She felt she would hate him if he made the offer at such a time in his usual condescending, sacrificial way. What happiness it would be if he came to her and said : "Alice, I want you to marry me," in the tender, impassioned, THE GREATER JOY 373 reverent tone he employed when genuine and sincere. "Alice, I want you to marry me." Would he speak those words to her in that tone ? She arose and stretched herself wearily. Quarter after nine. She would bathe and breakfast and dress — that would help pass the time, and perhaps, perhaps he would be awake shortly, and then he would ring her up on the telephone. It occurred to her that he might call her while she was bathing, and she eliminated the bath. She was dressed and- had her cup of chocolate by half past ten, but there had come no telephone call. The clock struck eleven. Her impatience and anxiety got the bet- ter of her. Again she went to the 'phone, and again Johann answered. "Is the Prince Regent up yet?" "Yes, Countess. I — I " the honest fellow began stuttering and stammering. "Did you forget to give him my message?" Alice asked smoothly. "No, Countess. I gave him your message. He said nothing." "Is he at home now?" "Yes, Countess." "Call him." The voice of Johann became very faint and uncertain over the last words. He returned to the telephone in a second's time. "His Highness regrets — he is busy." Alice hung up the receiver without replying. She felt as if some one had struck her a blow in the face. Her heart seemed to have forcibly stopped. Had it come to that between them? And why? Von Garde was announced. She was tempted to let Estelle tell him that she was indisposed and unable to 374 THE GREATER JOY see him. Why had he come? What would he say? She vaguely thought that it would be cowardly, selfish and inhuman to refuse to see him. She swallowed ten grains of bromide before she had sufficient courage to face him. She was so agitated, as she entered the reception room in which von Garde was waiting, that she was unable to utter a word. The young officer bowed stiffly, but did not accept the chair to which she motioned. She her- self collapsed, rather than sat down upon a chair. "Countess von Gortza, I have come to ask you a sim- ple question. You heard of the occurrence last night in the wine-room?" She forced a half smothered "Yes." "I am told that afterward, my mother made an un- pleasant scene. It is reported that you said " He came to a dead stop. "Why don't you go on?" she demanded. Her self- possession had returned. She could not shirk telling him the truth now any more than she had shirked tell- ing it the night before. If anything, it was easier now. He did not reply to her question, and when she looked at him again, she saw that he was fumbling at his col- lar, as if struggling for air. The distress pictured in his face was horrible to behold. His face was livid ; his eyes were unnaturally bright. Compassion for him over- came her own distress. "What did you say — your last words?" he demanded abruptly. "I said," she retorted, "that you owed General von Hollen an apology." "Great God! Then it is true." She arose, and crossed to the fire-place, turning her THE GREATER JOY 975 back on him. She clung to a chair for support. Fi- nally, she said: "Yes, it is true." He came and stood beside her. She experienced a singular curiosity as to what he was about to do. She thought that possibly he would shoot her, but she felt no fear. She thought she would almost be glad to have her troubles and perplexities ended for her in that sim- ple, brutal way. But when she faced him, she saw that he had no weapon in his hands. Suddenly he raised his hands and took her roughly by the shoulders, his fin- gers pressing into her tender flesh until she winced. "Tell me it is not true," he said, "and I will believe you." Her eyes were dim with tears. She pitied him im- measurably. "It is true," she said in a hopeless, forlorn voice. He relinquished his grasp on her shoulders, and walked to the door. Then he came back to her once more. "True or not," he said wildly, "I will not believe that you are not a good woman. I love you. I love you with a passion and a tenderness that I would not have believed it possible for mortal man to feel for mortal woman. Countess von Gortza — Alice — will you marry me?" "It is out of the question," she answered kindly but firmly. Presently he went on: "The Prince Regent cannot marry you. You have been weak, you have trusted him, you have been fool- ish, but you are not wicked. Marry me. I will take you away from here. I am rich. I will devote my en- tire life to making you happy." 376 THE GREATER JOY • "No, no," she replied feebly. He continued, his voice melting in a crescendo of passion and tenderness: "You do not love me now. I understand that. Marry me, nevertheless. I will win your love. Until I do, we will be as brother and sister. But give me the right to care for you, to protect you, to cherish you. All I ask at present is to serve you, to be near you." She turned and looked into his impassioned eyes. Oh, to be worthy of such love as that! But she felt no emotion save that of pity, and perhaps of gratitude. "Herr Adjutant" she said, "you are talking wildly. You are offering to ruin your entire future for me. "My future matters nothing," he said hastily. "Your happiness matters everything — your happiness would bring happiness to me. Nothing else can do that. I cannot leave you here — it is all very well at present, while the Prince loves you — but you do not realize as well as I, who have seen him discard one woman after another, what it will mean to you when his love grows cold! Believe me, you will be better off as my wife. Do not sacrifice your entire life for the sake of a few more months of delirious happiness. Return to a life of virtue — marry me to-day, to-morrow, next week — but break with the Prince at once." "I cannot," she said. "I cannot. I love him the way you love me." "He is unworthy of you, and of such love !" cried von Garde. "Why won't you believe me? He will never marry you, no matter what promises he may have made you. Surely you must realize that by this time?" She did not answer. She was looking searchingly at the young officer. Her own suffering was completely submerged by her pity for him and her desire and her THE GREATER JOY 377 — — — i^^^— » determination to save for him what she could out of the wreckage she had made of his life. She spoke very quietly, in a subdued and smooth voice. "Herr Adjutant!' she said, "the Prince Regent did not promise to marry me. He gave me the choice of marriage or — of this. I knew what a sacrifice marriage would have involved, and I preferred an unlegalized af- fair. I went to him with my eyes wide open. He is not to be blamed any more than I." It wrung her heart to see the look of hopeless inertia that came into his face. Her words had done their work. He buried his face in his hands, and she heard him groan like a man in extreme physical pain. Then, without looking at her again, he went to the door. There he burst forth once more: "Since you will not marry me, why didn't you have the courage to lie for your own sake? It would have been sweeter for me by far to lie dead and cold with a bullet through my heart, than to carry this defiled image of you about with me. Forgive me," he went on. "I am not angry with you. But I curse Prince Ulrich and his rank! I would give everything I possess — my fu- ture, my life, my career, the possibility of winning your love — if our rank were the same, that I might challenge him to a duel and kill him. Good-bye." His voice was hoarse and broken. He bowed and was gone. But the look of anguish in his face seemed to have remained behind, seemed to have become a tan- gible thing limned against the rose and gold of the panel in the wall against which his face had been sil- houetted. The inactivity, her thoughts, her memories, her fears, drove her half-mad. Finally, at two o'clock, she could stand the suspense no longer. She ordered her electric 378 THE GREATER JOY > brougham, and set off for the Neues Palais, where Ul- rich lived. In the hall she met Sylvia. "You!" exclaimed the Princess. She almost hissed the one word. Then, "Come in here." And she led the way into a small room. "I do not wish to upbraid you, Alice," she began ex- plosively, "but how could you, how could you admit in public that Ulrich had been lying to save you? Can't you imagine how furious he is? Good heavens, how wretched you look! He is furious, furious." "Is that why he is angry?" stammered Alice. "Yes. Oh, what a mess you have made of things! What would one lie more or less have mattered to you? You don't suppose Ulrich would have allowed this duel to come off? He would have sent for von Garde, and explained matters unter vier Aug en. But to admit the truth publicly — to give Ulrich the lie publicly — it was inexcusable !" "Where is Ulrich?" "What do you intend doing?" "I want to see him. I want to go to him." "No, Alice, not now. I do not mind telling you that I was so angry with you myself last night that I vowed I would wash my hands of you. But I'll try and help you." "Thank you," replied Alice calmly. "But please tell me where Ulrich is?" "No — don't attempt to see him to-day. Let him alone. The men of our family are all notoriously cruel to their women when angry with them, and I think that Ulrich, for all his charming manner and courtliness, can be quite as much of a brute as the rest of them. Come, be sensible. Go home, and don't wait here in the hope of seeing Ulrich." THE GREATER JOY 879 The girl shook her head. "I can't. I must see him. You say he is angry. I am so miserable I do not believe I care if he strikes me. I must see him. I think I shall go mad unless I hear his voice. I'll do anything he asks of me in ex- tenuation. I'll humiliate myself. I will Seg him to for- give me on my knees. Yes, I will kneel to him." The Princess looked at the girl curiously. A little disdainful smile hovered about her lips. "You seem to have gone stark mad," she exclaimed scornfully. "Ask his forgiveness on your knees! Pshaw ! You'd have to lick his boots ever after. Don't be a goose, Alice. Go home! Take a sedative, or a hypodermic, and wait till he asks to see you. Then con- trive to be ill with a raging headache, and make him wait another twelve hours. That's what you'll do if you have an ounce of common sense left." "Well, I haven't," Alice retorted. "Please let me see him." The Princess laughed mockingly. "Yon do not imagine he will refuse to see me, do you?" asked Alice. "I'm afraid he will see you," said the Princess gravely. "He'll anticipate entirely too much pleasure from the torment he will put you through to send you away with- out seeing you." Johann evidently was of a different opinion. He seemed to suspect that his Highness would refuse to see any visitor whatsoever, for he refused to announce the Countess, saying diplomatically, with all the suavity of the well-bred European servant, that as it was the Coun- tess's custom to enter unannounced, he saw no necessity for announcing her to-day, unless she particularly de- sired it. S30 THE GREATER JOY The Countess did not particularly desire it, so she en- tered the laboratory very quietly unannounced. Ulrich was sitting in an arm-chair with his back to the door. She walked rapidly across the long, light, white room, gliding silently over the parquetry flooring. But Ulrich recognized her step. He sprang to his feet. They faced each other across the high back of the big chair. "Ulrich !" she exclaimed. He bowed. "Countess Gortza, what gives me the pleasure of your visit?" It was cruel to thrust her thus into an alien zone, but in spite of her misery a thrill of pleasure tingled through every nerve. This was the same inflexible self-posses- sion, the same suave, languorous grace and charm that he had brought to bear upon her in the pre-nuptial days, and which, to this hour, when he chose to enshroud himself in it, never failed to fascinate her. "Ulrich!" she stammered again. "Countess, tale this chair. I will get another for myself." He waited for her to be seated, as if they were strangers. A wild notion seized her to throw herself at his feet then and there and implore his forgiveness. But dis- cretion prevailed. She feared him in this caustic mood more than she would have dreaded any outbreak of anger. He would probably riddle her with sarcasm if she were to kneel to him now. No, decidedly, she must do nothing so crude at the moment. She sat down limply in the chair which he had placed for her. "I have come, Ulrich, to ask your forgiveness." THE GREATER JOY 381 A graceful gesture of his slim, dark, aristocratic hand invited her to proceed. Sylvia was right, she reflected. He would not spare her one jot of any possible torment he could put her through. And how refined, how deli- cately refined was that torment! "I did not realize last night when I spoke the truth about myself that it made things rather awkward for you, as you had defended me. All I felt at the moment was that I must speak the truth/' "Then why agitate yourself about the matter subse- quently, Countess?" This studied reiteration of her title was diabolical. She became so nervous that she could barely enunciate. "I am afraid I have offended you very deeply," she said humbly. A deprecatory gesture of the eloquent hand, and then the words: "I do not deny, Countess, that it was unpleasant to be stigmatized as a liar. But chivalry dictates that an of- fence which would be unpardonable if committed by man, must be condoned in a woman, particularly if she commits the offence in trying to save from fancied death the man she loves — perhaps her lover." "Ulrich !" She jumped to her feet, in anger. Her face turned pale. She seemed suddenly transformed. He had not thought that she could become so angry. "Ulrich," she exclaimed indignantly, "how dare you say such a thing? You know it is not true. It's abom- inable of you! It's infamous!" "Infamous is a pretty strong word," he said coldly. "You know as well as I, that I do not care a fig about von Garde or any other man. I love you — you only." 382 THE GREATER JOY "That, of course, is very flattering," he replied coolly. From his careless manner she might have been a woman to whom he had addressed the merest compli- ment some time in the past. A little hard lump gath- ered in her throat. She swallowed it. "You've got to take that back, Ulrich," she said, try- ing to control herself. "It's a gross insult. I won't take it, not even from you, least of all from you." He arose and made her a ridiculously profound bow. "I humbly apologize," he said, and with a smile re- seated himself. "Ulrich, Ulrich," she cried, "don't treat me this way !" "I am sorry you find my manner offensive, Countess. If you will point out in what way I am making myself objectionable, I will mend my fault." It was a splendid bit of acting, but his nerves were beginning to give under the strain and he knew it. "You are very heartless, Ulrich !" She walked through the room, and then came back to him. As she approached him, he sprang to his feet, with a gesture that was almost defensive. When her eyes met his she saw anxiety in them, and at once she realized her own power over him. She knew that all she need do was to throw herself about his neck, to press her lips upon his mouth, to touch his brow with her fingers, and he would be sobbing and moaning in her arms a moment later. A little inner voice seemed to coax her, to goad her on : "Down with your reserve, your modesty. If you wish to hold him, play the courtesan for once. Subjugate him. Let him feel the warmth of your lips, the throbbing of your blood, the fragrance of your skin, the magic of your hair !" But the woman in her rebelled. If she could not overcome his anger as one human being speaking to another, she THE GREATER JOY 383 would not pollute the feeling that had bound them to- gether. With a little gesture of disdain, of contempt almost, she walked away from him. When she turned and looked at him, he stood with his watch in his hand. "I am sure, Countess/' he said more gently, without looking at her, "that you will pardon me for asking your permission to discontinue this very interesting conversa- tion. I am due at the Clinic in half an hour." She did not reply, but stood looking at him fixedly. Fear came back in his eyes. It occurred to her that to punish him she might caress him, and having demon- strated her power, seeing him inert and helpless, she might fling back his passion to him as not worth having. But she restrained herself. She would not lower herself. Still she did not reply. He pretended that she had spoken. "Thank you so much, Countess," he said, and walked to the door. The fear of losing him sent the blood rushing to her heart. She felt dizzy and ill. "Ulrich, don't go, don't go " He stretched out his hand for the door-knob. Her dizziness increased. Perhaps she stumbled over a loose rug ; perhaps it was nervousness ; perhaps weakness, for she had not touched food that day; perhaps, also, it was the strange desir^ she had experienced all morning to kneel to him. At any rate, she stumbled forward, and fell at his feet. "Ulrich, don't go, don't, don't! If you break with me like this it will kill me. After all, what have I done ? I have given my honor, my career, everything for you. You yourself would have hated me if I had not spoken the truth. Ulrich " 384 THE GREATER JOY His hand was turning the door-knob; he ignored her completely. She became desperate. "Ulrich, what can I say to soften you? Look at me. My reputation is in tatters, and after all — owing to you. Can you not forgive me for what I have done ?" He opened the door. A cry of distress came from her lips, like the cry of a hunted creature of the woods making its last stand. She pitched forward face down. She heard the door close and believed he had gone. When he lifted her from the floor she lay in his arms in a dead faint. Ten minutes elapsed before he was able to revive her. CHAPTER XXII Von Garde had, of course, requested that his immedi- ate resignation be accepted. A week later he had him- self transferred to a different regiment. Neither Ulrich nor Alice saw him before he left. He called on Sylvia, and as she happened to be out, he left his card with "p. p. c." scribbled in the corner. He made no further effort to see her. Once more Ulrich and Alice were lovers. If his ca- pacity for refined cruelty was great, his capacity for ten- derness was practically unlimited, and he made her ample amends for the heart-breaking torture to which he had put her. He sent Egon daily to see her. The carriage with the beautiful jet-black horses and the lackeys in the royal liveries — the yellow plush liveries which she so much admired — waited for hours outside her door, and the child King sat within his toy-room, and played at her feet, while she embroidered or read, or entertained some friend. Ulrich wished to proclaim to the entire little world at Hohen that the one pure affection of his life, his love for little Egon, was shared by his mistress. One morning he brought Egon to Alice's apartment for breakfast. She saw immediately that something was wrong, as the two entered. "Countess Gortza," said Ulrich, standing behind Egon, and giving Alice a significant wink, "I am afraid I am go- ing to inconvenience you. When I asked your permission last week to bring my little cousin this morning, I thought 385 386 THE GREATER JOY we would have a pleasant, informal, cosy little break- fast. But it is my duty to tell you that his Majesty, the King, desires to be treated with due ceremony." Tears came to Egon's eyes. He stamped his foot in impotent rage. "I don't want you to talk to me like that, Cousin Ul- rich," he cried. "Did I misinterpret your Majesty's instructions?" asked Ulrich innocently. Poor little Egon began bawling ingloriously. The royal fists were rubbed quite vulgarly into the royal eyes to wipe away the inundation of tears. He looked very ridiculous. Running across the room, he threw himself, sobbing, upon a couch. "I am sorry to have to rebuke your Majesty," said Ulrich, with another wink at Alice, "but it is considered very bad form for a gentleman, though he is a crowned head, to lie down in the presence of a lady." "I don't care if it is," blubbered Egon, his nose very red, and his round little face drenched with tears. "You see, Countess," continued Ulrich, "the King this morning threw his hairbrush at his valet, because the man did not address him to his liking. Later, his Majesty explained to me that it was time to impress everyone with the fact that he is King. I am doing so.'' Egon attempted to protest. But he was crying quite too vigorously to enunciate any intelligible words. A confused jumble of disjointed syllables came from his mouth. Alice signified to Ulrich to withdraw. Left alone with the little boy, she took him on her lap, and soothed him. "Don't you think, dear, that Cousin Ulrich knows best how you are to be addressed?" she said. "I think you can safely trust him." THE GREATER JOY 387 "Do you trust him?" "Implicitly." Egon considered this. "Of course I trust him," he said. "Then I should think you would try to obey him." "But I am the King." "Yes, dear, you are the King. But if you were al- ways to be treated as a king, you would not like it at all." "Yes, I should." "You didn't like it just now when Cousin Ulrich treated you ceremoniously. And if I were to treat you like a king, I couldn't possibly take you on my lap, and kiss you, and hug you, and call you my own, dear little lad." He pondered over that a little while. Then he said: "Please don't you ever treat me differently. But I don't see why I should have to obey everyone, even Cousin Ulrich." "Because we all must learn to obey before we can command. Because you are only a little boy. If your grandfather were still living, your rank would be ex- actly the same as your cousin's. And then, Egon, yon must remember that Cousin Ulrich is a great man, and would be even if he were not of royal rank. It is doubt- ful, dear, whether you will ever be as competent as Cousin Ulrich. Furthermore, when we trust people, the way you and I trust Cousin Ulrich, we must some- times do blindly what they wish, knowing that they know better than we ourselves what is good for us." The little boy turned on Alice's lap, and regarded her contemplatively. "Dear Miss Schatzie," he said, in the winning von Dette way, "tell me, did you ever do anything Cousin 388? THE GREATER JOY Ulrich wanted you to do blindly, without questioning, just because you trusted him?" "Yes, dear." "And you've never been sorry." "Never." The lad got to his feet. "I guess," he said, "I will go and apologize to Cousin Ulrich." Within ten minutes Egon was rioting in buckwheat cakes and hot muffins, luxuries he was not allowed at home. He had forgotten his woes. He had had two muffins, and asked Ulrich whether he might have a third. "Ask the Countess. She knows what is good for little boys better than I. She is a trained nurse." Alice helped him to a muffin, and Egon said sagely : "Oh, yes, that is why grandfather gave her a title, isn't it?" "Yes," said Ulrich briefly. "If grandfather hadn't, could I have given her a title during my minority ?" "No," said Ulrich. "But you could have asked me, as Prince Regent, to give it to her, and I would have done it." "I guess I wouldn't have had to ask you," commented Egon coolly. "I think you are just as fond of her as I am." Alice flushed painfully. She exchanged a swift glance with Ulrich. He shrugged his shoulders. A moment later Egon said : "Oh, it is just lovely to have breakfast like this, sitting between you, dear Countess Gortza, and Cousin Ulrich. It makes me feel as if I had really and truly a father and mother." THE GREATER JOY 389 He jumped from his chair, and ran toward Alice to be kissed. She wiped his mouth, sticky with honey. Above the child's shoulder her eyes and Ulrich's met. Her lips trembled. The same thought came to them both. Prior to the ball which had ended so disastrously for her, Alice had issued invitations for a reception to be held in one of the ball-rooms of her hotel about a fortnight later. Ulrich wondered whether she would have the courage to stand up and receive the two hundred odd persons she had invited, and bear the brunt of their malice or com- passion, or whether she would feign an indisposition, and have the invitations recalled at the last moment. As she consulted him about good form in floral decorations at such affairs, he discreetly abstained from asking ques- tions. It was well past ten o'clock when he entered the hall where Alice, with Sylvia near her, was receiving. There was a mob of people about them, and he did not approach her at once, but stood watching her. Again she gave him the sensation of being a stranger, a woman whom he had barely spoken to. What was the secret of her charm and of her power? Certainly her manner was perfect. A woman born and bred in this sophisticated society could not have been more at her ease. There was a touch of deference in her manner, as she spoke to the elder women, that was ad- mirable, and in addressing the elderly men she employed a manner of hesitating coquetry. The younger men — they were swarming about her — she treated distantly, aloofly. Ulrich made his way through the crush of people, bowed over her hand, kissed it, spoke a few perfunctory words and passed on. But he remained near her. Her 390 THE GREATER JOY * ■— — i, society manner fascinated him. It was so like and so unlike her. Like her, in that she retained her spon- taneity and charm ; unlike her, in that her manner, with- out conveying coldness, lacked every vestige of cor- diality. He saw and marvelled. Some officers grouped themselves about him, but his silence prohibited loquacity on their part, and one by one they fell away. A Fraeulein von Achtlingen sidled up to Alice. She had just arrived. She was a withered, faded woman of forty-five or older, unnaturally lean and tall, her skin wrinkled and cracked like dry earth. She limped and was cross-eyed. All in all, a repulsive-looking creature, and her physical infirmities, which ordinarily would have earned her a charitable compassion, had failed to soften anyone toward her, for her malice was as great as her unattractiveness. Alice greeted her, and von Achtlingen lisped in a voice loud enough to be heard by a number of persons who stood near : "Dear Countess, I was grieved for you the other even- ing. Such a misfortune! To have your name linked with the Prince Regent's!" "Would it have been such a misfortune for you?" re- torted Alice. The men who stood near, laughed. Ulrich with diffi- culty repressed a smile. Her self-possession was superb. He moved away, sat down at a distance from her in an alcove where he was partially screened from view, but where he could see her. He remembered that he had once, long ago, in thinking of her and of the ever newness of her personality, com- pared her to Shakespeare's Cleopatra, "Age cannot stale or custom wither her." He had then thought her de- THE GREATER JOY 891 ficient in magnificence and splendor. How she had de- veloped since then! Surely no woman could be more magnificent than she was to-ni > ' "Ulrich," she said, as soon as he was seated, "I want to have a long talk with you, dear." "About what?" "About ourselves, Ulrich. It must have occurred to you that we cannot go on indefinitely on our present foot- ing. I want to offer to release you, Ulrich." "What makes you think that I desire to be released, Alice?" "Many things. For myself also, I think, a separation would be better. Perhaps, instead of offering to release you, I should have asked you to release me." "I confess, this strikes me as being rather sudden." "No, Ulrich, it is not sudden at all. We have both realized for over a year, although we have never spoken of it, that a separation would ultimately be inevitable." "Why should it be?" "Ulrich," she said, and a tremor vibrated in her voice, "neither of us is satisfied with the present state of affairs. We became lovers because, in the first place, we were ideally suited to each other, and in the second place we met at the psychological moment. If I had been a little older, you would not have dazzled me to the extent of paralyzing my sense of right and wrong, as you did, nor would I have inspired you with that desire to mould me and re-shape me and make me, body and soul, into pre- cisely that which you wanted me to be. Love was the one significant, potent fact in life. Everything else dwindled away before the majesty of love. But we passed the spring-time of youth. We love each other more deeply than we did then, but those moments of ecstacy can never return. There are persons of both sexes who, when the spring-time of love recedes, seek to revive that spring-time with another partner. Both you and I are too sane to attempt anything of that sort. We US THE GREATER JOY realize the seriousness of life, and that love is but the be- ginning, and can never be the end. We have lost the spring-time of love, but we have the gold and purple of summer before us. After the blossom the fruit. We cannot enjoy our summer — you and I — because for us there can be no fruition. We are compelled, because of our peculiar situation, to thwart Nature, to destroy, in- stead of creating. "That is why we are not happy. It is not because we do not love each other, but because loving each other as tenderly as we do, we both feel the immorality and futility of our love.' , "I have not dared to face the situation as clearly as you are doing," he said. "Oh, Ulrich," she continued, speaking more rapidly and more passionately than before, "can you imagine, I wonder, just how I have longed for a child, your child? And desiring maternity so passionately, have you any no- tion how barbarously, fiendishly cruel it was to be forced to avoid motherhood, to be compelled to employ incessant vigilance in the thwarting of Nature's sanest and truest instinct V She had not meant to plead for herself, but the pain she had endured almost in silence for years had over- flowed. She had merely wished to make him believe that she was perfectly willing to agree to a separation, but she had gone too far. She had aroused in him a sus- picion that she desired a separation on her own account. He became very pale. He sat looking at her without speaking. She was in her prime. The pale, virginal girl had matured into a woman of radiant beauty and womanliness. Her manner had lost none of its sincerity and sparkle, which it had pleased him to think were American traits, and she had acquired the dignified ele- THE GREATER JOY 449 gance which marks the woman of the world. She had a charm all her own, and although she had never told him, he knew that more than one man of wealth and position had offered her marriage. With this in mind, he said finally : "Alice, do I understand that you wish to be released so you can marry, or that you wish to release me so that I may marry ?" "I desire a separation on your account principally," she replied, "but I desire it on my account also." "You are evading my question. You have never told me, but I am sure that Grand-duke Boris wants you to be his wife. Am I right?" "Three times Boris has asked me to marry him, Ulrich. He told me frankly the first time he proposed that he came to Hohen with the intention of 'stealing me away' from you. He wanted me to live with him. He ended by asking me to marry him." She did not tell her lover all she knew in connection with the Boris affair. The Grandduke had told her that Sylvia had sent him Alice's picture, and had invited him to Hohen for the purpose of bringing about an estrange- ment between Ulrich and herself. He had thought it good sport, and had taken Sylvia's "dare." But on meeting Alice, he had abandoned the "sport," and had asked her to be his wife. This was only one of Sylvia's desperate moves to capture Hohenhof-Hohe. Ulrich looked at her fixedly. Slowly he asked: "Do you wish to marry Boris?" "I have never thought about it seriously. If it makes this step easier for you, dear, I will promise you not to marry Boris or any other man." He took her hand in his. "Alice," he said tenderly, "I quite deserve your looking 450 THE GREATER JOY upon me as a monument of selfishness. I would certainly not exact such a promise. On the contrary, it would make a separation very much easier for me, if I thought that you were looking forward to a future similar to mine." She said nothing. All the blood in her body seemed to be rushing to her heart. She could see from Ulrich's manner that he welcomed the idea of a separation, and he was asking her quite calmly to marry another man. Great God! Had Ulrich any notion of just how she loved him? She controlled herself with difficulty. She wanted to give him pleasure, and if it made it easier for him to think she desired marriage with another man, she would pretend to be at least not averse to such a plan. "Alice," he said gently, "answer me." "I cannot promise you that I will marry Boris." He urged insistently. She walked across the room, and, to steady her nerves, placed her burning hands on the cold alabaster of the mantel-piece. She felt her self-possession going, and she had a horror of fainting or of beginning to cry. When she turned to answer Ulrich a moment later, her voice was tranquil. "If we decide upon a separation, Alice, will you allow me to pension you ?" "It will not be necessary. I have put aside a sum of money every year, which the banker, Seligmann, in- vested for me in state bonds — and the income of these bonds I devoted to charitable purposes, heretofore. The income amounts to about three thousand dollars annually. That will amply suffice for my needs, and I love you far too deeply, Ulrich, to feel that I am placing myself under an improper obligation to you in retaining that money." THE GREATER JOY 451 "Thank you, Alice," he said simply. She had no intention of using any portion of that money for herself. She would give ic away to charities, as she had done before, but she knew that he would never consent to a separation unless he believed her comfortable*. "Ulrich," she said suddenly, after a long pause, "if you decide upon a separation, I wish you would make no further effort to see me. Let this be the last time we meet. It will make things easier for both of us." "Very well." His face was ghastly. She wondered vaguely if she was as pale as he. She knew, as she looked upon the tortured expression of his face, that his decision had been reached even then. "Alice, before I go, may I kiss you ?" "I would rather you didn't, Ulrich." "Very well." At the door he turned and looked at her. "Good-bye, Alice," he said in a choking voice. "Good-bye, Ulrich." She dared not look at him, for her eyes were blinded with tears. She checked them, and forced back the sobs that were shaking her, until she knew he was well out of the house. Then she collapsed upon the floor, and buried her face upon the divan where he had been but a minute before, and cried as if her heart were breaking. And it was. CHAPTER XXVII The excitement which the news of the engagement of the King and the Grandduchess occasioned was inde- scribable. The streets were gay with bunting, students and children and even staid old citizens trailed through the streets laughing and joking and singing. The entire country seemed to have gone mad with joy. Alice shut herself up in her house, but although the grounds were so large that the tumult of the celebrations and festivities could not reach her, she could not escape from the scenes of hilarity upon the river. The town was taking a holiday, and as the weather was perfect, crowds of small river craft sailed and rowed and steamed up and down-stream, past "Seelenruh" filled with gaily attired and happy merry-makers. "Seelenruh !" What irony ! Alice expected to feel some regret at leaving the beautiful mansion over which she had ruled as mistress for five years; she found that she was beginning to hate and loathe it. She refused to see all who called, even Gunther, but he sent Estelle to tell her mistress that he would not leave Hohen without bid- ding her adieu. So Alice consented to see him. She had expected to hear the young man break into a wild tirade against Sylvia, but for once she was so filled with her own misery, that she had no sympathy left for anyone. Her powers of endurance were almost broken. To her surprise, she found Gunther composed and quiet. He did not kiss her hand as usual, but with 452 THE GREATER JOY 453 a brotherly gesture of affection, stooped over her and k'ssed her cheek. "Poor little girl," he said, "poor little girl !" "For Heaven's sake, don't pity me, Gunther," she said curtly. He sat down beside her. She became unreasonably angry because he had shown her sympathy. She didn't want his or anybody's pity, but when she lifted her eyes to his face and saw the tender pity in his loyal, honest eyes, her pride melted away, and she wept bitterly. She felt her shoulder encircled by a strong young arm, and her head pressed against a firm young shoulder. "Cry away, little cousin, it will do you good." And cry she did for ten minutes or more. Then Gun- ther dried her tears, and chafed her hands, and kissed her once more, and behaved generally as a big, kind, affectionate brother might have done. "It's quite as hard on you, Gunther," she said finally. "No, it's not. You didn't believe me the other day fvhen I told you I was through with Sylvia. It's bad enough for a chap to want something for years and years that he cannot have, but it's infinitely worse to find quite suddenly that you no longer want what you have been wanting so long, and that you are a bally idiot for ever having wanted it." "Poor old Gunther!" "Ulrich is a fool. He will ^bitterly regret what he is doing when it is too late. I am going to England. There's nothing I want in this wide world, I find, but perhaps I can forget the aching void which takes the place of what was once my heart, in trying to amuse little Mary. I shall play tennis and golf and croquet with her, and take her motoring and sing her the Studenten- THE GREATER JOY lieder, which she tells me she loves to hear me sing, and perhaps that will help me forget my troubles." "What a brick you are, Gunther!" And so they parted. Alice remained in "Seelenruh" another week. She had written to Ulrich to send someone to whom she could turn over the keys, but he wrote back, asking her to re- main in the place as long as she pleased; but she was anxious to get away. Her personal possessions were packed ; the rooms were dismantled, the furniture swathed in Holland covers, the valuable oil paintings covered with netting, the beautiful gold and silver plate housed in the enormous safe; everything was arranged as for a long, long absence. She supposed Ulrich would dispose of the furniture, and the silver and the bric-a-brac by private sale. She was certain he would never enter the house again. And still she stayed on. A wild hope kept her there. From day to day she hoped that a miracle would happen which would send Ulrich back to her. She could not be- lieve that everything was at an end between them, that he would be able to erase her so effectually out of his life. Finally she could bear the loneliness of the quiet, dis- mantled house no longer. She decided quite suddenly one morning to leave for Berlin. She telegraphed to the Adlon, bade Estelle finish packing, and left with her maid by the noon train. As she stepped into the magnificent automobile, which she was to use for the last time, a sen- sation of despair came over her. Not once did she glance back at the exquisite mansion which she was leaving, nor at the noble old trees which she had loved so well, at the sweeping lawns where she had walked so often with Ulrich in summer evenings. THE GREATER JOY 455 That chapter of her life was closed — forever. The day after she left the servants were startled by seeing the tall, commanding figure they knew so well marching up the stairs and into the hall. "Announce me to the Countess." "The Countess left for Berlin yesterday, your Majesty." "At what hotel is she stopping ?" They told him. He did not leave, but strode past the servants, up the stairs and into the little boudoir which he had taken such joy in furnishing for her five years before. So wild and haggard was his face, that the servants, huddled together in the large hall, waited anxiously for they knew not what — the report of a pistol perhaps. But Ulrich had no intention of committing suicide. He stalked up and down the little room, and half uncon- scious of what he was doing, opened her desk. It was empty. He opened her work-table. A forgotten bit of needlework which she had overlooked in the hurry of leaving, remained. He had frequently seen her at work on it, and he stared at it stupidly, not able to comprehend that she would never finish it, that her hand had touched and handled the wrinkled bit of linen for the last time. He flung the embroidery away from him, and resumed pacing the floor. "My God !" he cried suddenly, "I cannot give her up, I cannot." He halted at the window-seat, where, stretched at full length, half asleep over some book, she had waited for him so often until long after midnight when he had been detained. The pillows lay as she had left them. The im- pression her head and shoulders had made was still visible. A tortoise shell hairpin lay in a crease of the pillow. 456 THE GREATER JOY He took it up tenderly, and suddenly he dropped on his knees and buried his face in the pillows against which her body had rested. It seemed to him that the warm, sweet perfume of her skin and hair still clung to the cushion. He moaned. He pressed the cushion against his face until he was almost smothered. Then he threw it away from him and began beating his hands upon the walls, upon the floor, against the seat. "I cannot give her up, I cannot !" he groaned. Presently he began weeping. It was years since he had cried — not since Egon's death — but those tears had been tender and sweet compared to the terrible tempest of tears that seemed now to rend his soul. He was frantic with the anguish of it all. When he finally stumbled to his feet, there had come to him, without any volition of his own, a realization of what his decision must be. There was one way only, and he meant to take it. CHAPTER XXVIII Alice had intended remaining in Berlin only one or two days, but she happened to meet Sally, and in her new terror of being alone, she was heartily glad of her old friend's company. So she remained longer. The week brought her three important letters, from the Grandduke, from Bouchere, and from von Garde, and each of these three letters contained an offer of marriage. The Frenchman's was elegant and crisp, the Russian's almost Oriental in its deliberate display of passion, and she read each of these two letters twice. But von Garde's she read many times. It was tender, reverential, solicitous, and the very essence of the man seemed to be wafted from his letter. Alice had not heard directly from him since that painful interview following the fateful ball, and it touched her deeply to think that he still loved her sufficiently to care to marry her. She asked herself whether it would not be possible to find some semblance of happiness in trying to secure his. In spite of the bitter recollections which clung to him, perhaps because of them, she felt a deep- rooted fondness for him. It was out of the question that she would ever love him, or any other man, but she won- dered whether she would not be happier in accepting ob- ligations toward some human being than by drifting alone down the stream of life. She thought the matter over for three days, and then wrote him, telling him that if he was satisfied to marry her knowing that she could not give him any love, only 457 458 THE GREATER JOY whole-hearted and sincere affection and respect, she was willing that he should do so. But after she had written the letter, memories of Ulrich came to harass her, and all her love, her passion and her desire for Ulrich came rushing back upon her. She tore the letter she had written to von Garde, and flung it into the paper-basket, and then, like a poor, caged thing, she walked around and around the room. Why should she be compelled to give up Ulrich ? She had overestimated her strength. Even if the marriage were unavoidable, that was really no reason why he and she should separate. What were considerations of honor, of self-respect, of anything in the wide world compared to such love as theirs ? She would write Ulrich the next day. No, she would return to Hohen that very night. She would go to him, and say, "Ulrich, I cannot live without you any more than you can live without me. I must hear your voice, be near you, see you. Otherwise I shall go insane. Marry Sylvia. Accept her terms. Be her husband for three months, for six months, for a year — until the succession is secured — and then come back to me." With a start, she pulled up before the mirror. She looked at her image as she would have looked at the face of a stranger. And sanity returned. "Heavens and earth!" she muttered aloud, "have I sunk as low as that?" She took a sheet of writing paper from her desk, and wrote von Garde, thanking him for his faith in her, and assuring him that it added to her own distress to know she must give him this new pain by rejecting his offer. Ringing for the maid, and without looking, she pointed to the letter and told her to mail it. But Estelle was not listening. She seemed strangely excited. THE GREATER JOY 459 "Oh, Madame!" she cried, "Madame " "What is it?" demanded Alice. "The King is here, Madame !" Ulrich had already entered the room. The maid fled through the open door. He turned and closed the door behind her. Pale and trembling Alice stood and stared at him. The expression on her face was the expression of a woman who has seen a ghost. He put down his high silk hat on a chair, threw down his gloves, and took off his overcoat. Then he faced her, standing on the opposite side of the table. Neither had spoken so far. "Alice/' he said, "we have been very foolish and very wicked, both of us, you as well as myself. We have be- lieved that we could fly in the face of Providence, and tear out of our hearts a love such as is rarely given to man and woman to feel for each other. My chief sins have been selfishness, ambition, insincerity. Your one sin has been damnable pride. We've made a sorry mess of things so far. Now we are going to take the right road, the only road that can bring us both happiness." "What do you mean ?" she faltered. "I mean that we are going to be married." "No, Ulrich, I will not marry you. You have too great an aversion for a morganatic alliance. I will not marry you." "Yes, Alice, you will marry me, because I wish it." "But Sylvia?" "The engagement is broken off. Old Freiin von Schwellenberg is dying, as you know. She wrote and begged me to come and see her. It seems her conscience was troubling her. She wished to make a clean breast of certain things concerning Sylvia and yourself. She 4*60 THE GREATER JOY told me that from the very first day that Sylvia saw you. she planned and contrived how to use you as a cat's-paw, either to get me out of the way, or to hold me in Hohen so that the Princess could ultimately marry me. Finally, despairing of our marriage, and perceiving that we were not tiring of each other, she invited Boris to come to Hohen for the express purpose of alienating you from me. "I knew all that long ago." "And your pride kept you from telling me !" he said re- proachfully. "Well, I went to Sylvia, confronted her with the facts, and asked her to release me from the en- gagement. She refused. Then I told her that if she continued to refuse, I would break the engagement. I gave her just twenty- four hours to decide which it should be. She began to cry, and implored me to give her more time. It seems that as long as she saw that the game was up, she might as well marry the man she loved. She wished Gunther to think that her heart, and not my bru- tality, had prompted the step. Most opportunely Gunther was announced just then. He had arrived from England that day, and asked to see me. He came into the room very solemnly, and instead of kissing Sylvia on the cheek, as he has always done when we are entre nous, he bowed very magnificently, and kissed her hand, and called her Grand-duchess. Sylvia, stammering and stuttering over the lie, told him that she felt she must follow the dictates of her heart, and as I had generously promised to release her, she had ultimately concluded to marry the only man she had ever loved. With another magnificent bow, Gunther said, 'I regret, Grand-duchess, to be forced to decline the honor. I have come home to find the King, and as he is here, I may as well prefer my request at once.' Another magnificent bow, of which this time I THE GREATER JOY' 461 was the recipient. Then he continued, addressing me, 'I have come to ask your Majesty's permission to marry my cousin of England, Princess Mary/ Can you imagine Sylvia's rage ? I feared a stroke of apoplexy." "Poor Sylvia !" murmured Alice. "Poor nothing!" retorted Ulrich. "But the best re- 1 mains to be told. I said to Gunther, 'My dear boy, you are of age, Mary is your peer and wealthy. If her guar- dians are satisfied with the match, you need no one's con- sent to the alliance.' He replied: The King of Eng- land is the head of her family, and he has given his con- sent. As is customary, I must obtain the formal consent of the head of our family, of you, our King.' I replied : 'Gunther, you do not need my permission; for a week from to-day you shall be head of the von Dettes and King of Hohenhof-Hohe. I intend to abdicate/ " The blood rushed from the girl's face and left her deathly pale. "Ulrich, you are mad ! I won't let you, I won't hear of it!" she cried wildly. "Hush, dear, do not interrupt my story. Gunther stared hard at me, and when he realized that I meant what I said, he grabbed my hand in the big, overgrown boy way he has, and cried: 'I am glad, that at last you are going to do what is right !' " But Sylvia was in- articulate with rage, mortification and jealousy. To lose both the man she loved and the crown for which she had schemed and plotted and lied, was too bitter a blow. And then, as a fitting culmination for the little comedy, von Bardolph entered. He had overheard all. 'Grand- duchess,' he said to Sylvia, his little weasel-eyes shining with malice like green Bengal lights, 'What did I tell you years ago ? "A face to change the map of empires" ; and the map would have been changed, dear Grand- 462 THE GREATER JOY duchess, if you had not bungled so lamentably but had married Gunther as you should have done years ago/ That, Alice, is the end of my story." "I won't let you abdicate !" she cried. "My dear Alice," said Ulrich firmly, "I am going to do just as I please in this matter." "I will not marry you if you abdicate," she cried. "I will return to you — as before — I will marry you mor- ganatically. I will not hear of your abdicating." He came and stood beside her, and opened his arms. She crept into them, and he kissed her. "To-morrow morning," he said, "the great news of my abdication will be flashed around the world; three days hence I sign the papers. Then Gunther will be King and I shall be plain Ulrich von Dette." "Don't do it, Ulrich, don't do it," she entreated. "I have done it, dear child," he said. "And if you refuse to marry me, I shall present myself at your door once a day, and propose to you, and finally you will say, 'Yes.' Alice, darling, you're not going to be foolish, are you, and spoil things ?" "Oh, Ulrich, Ulrich ! I love you so passionately — I can- not let you make this sacrifice." "It is no sacrifice, darling," he whispered. "To re- nounce you would be the only sacrifice worthy of the name that I can think of. I should have known this long ago, but I have been stupid, blind. And think, darling, we shall now have the right to hope for the greater joy — for the day when little feet will go patter- ing through the house, when little arms will cling about our necks " "Ulrich, Ulrich!" she moaned, "you are bribing me shamelessly. "You were mistaken, Alice, in one particular. Spring- THE GREATER JOY 463 time is not over for us. Spring is in our hearts, and will remain there always and always. For ours is true love." At last she whispered : "Yes." ****** A week later the passenger list of one of the large ocean liners bound for New York contained the names : "Dr. Ulrich von Dette and wife." THE END. NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS THE GAMBLERS A dramatic story of American Life. 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