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 ONE DAY
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 A SEQUEL TO 
 "THREE WEEKS" 
 
 ANONYMOUS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE MACAULAY COMPANY 
 
 1909
 
 COFYWGHT, 1909, 3T 
 
 T MACAULAY COMPANT
 
 FOREWORD TO 
 MY AMERICAN FRIENDS 
 
 Now after spending some very pleasant 
 weeks in your interesting country, I fed 
 sure that this book will find many sym- 
 pathetic readers in America. Quite naturally it 
 will be discussed ; some, doubtless, will censure it 
 and unjustly; others will believe with me that 
 the tale teaches a great moral lesson. 
 
 Born as the Boy was born, the end which Fate 
 forced upon him, to me, was inevitable. Each 
 word and act of the three weeks of his parents' 
 love-idyl must reflect in the character and life of 
 the child. Little by little the baby King grew 
 before my mental vision until I saw at last there 
 was no escape from his importunity and I allowed 
 the insistent Boy masterful even from his incep- 
 tion to shape himself at his own sweet will. 
 Thus he became the hero of my study. 
 
 2128691
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 This is not a book for children or fools but for 
 men and women who can grasp the underlying 
 principle of morality which has been uppermost in 
 my mind as I wrote. Those who can see beyond 
 the outburst of passion the overmastering belief 
 in the power of love to justify all things, which 
 the Boy inherited so naturally from his Queen 
 mother will understand the forces against which 
 the young Prince must needs fight a losing battle. 
 The transgression was unavoidable to one whose 
 very conception was beyond the law the punish- 
 ment was equally inevitable. 
 
 In fairness to this book of mine and to me 
 the great moral lesson I have endeavored to teach 
 must be considered in its entirety, and no single 
 episode be construed as the book's sole aim. The 
 verdict on my two years' work rests with you, dear 
 Reader, but at least you may be sure that I have 
 only tried to show that those who sow the wind 
 shall reap the whirlwind. 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 ONE DAY
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE Prince tore the missive fiercely from its 
 envelope, and scowled at the mocking 
 glint of the royal crown so heavily em- 
 bossed at the top of the paper. What a toy it was, 
 he thought, to cost so much, and eventually to 
 mean so little ! Roughly translated, the letter ran 
 as follows : 
 
 "Your Royal Highness will be gratified to learn 
 that at last a satisfactory alliance has been ar- 
 ranged between the Princess Elodie of Austria 
 and your royal self. It is the desire of both courts 
 and councils that the marriage shall be solemnized 
 on the fifteenth of the May following your twenty- 
 first birthday, at which time the coronation cere- 
 mony takes place that is to place the crown of the 
 kingdom upon the head of the son of our be- 
 loved and ever-to-be-regretted Imperatorskoye. 
 The Court and Council extend greetings and 
 congratulations upon the not far distant ap-
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 proach of both auspicious events to your Royal 
 Highness, which cannot fail to afford the utmost 
 satisfaction in every detail to the ever-beautiful- 
 and-never-to-be-sufficiently beloved Prince Paul. 
 "Imperator-to-be, we salute thee. We kiss thy 
 feet." 
 
 The letter was sealed with the royal crest and 
 signed by the Regent the Boy's uncle the 
 Grand Duke Peter, his mother's brother, who had 
 been his guardian and protector almost from his 
 birth. The young prince knew that his uncle 
 loved him, knew that the Grand Duke desired 
 nothing on earth so much as the happiness of his 
 beloved sister's only son and yet at this crisis of 
 the Boy's life, even his uncle was as powerless to 
 help as was Paul Verdayne, the Englishman. 
 
 "The Princess Elodie!" he grumbled. "Who 
 the devil is this Princess Elodie, anyway? Aus- 
 trian blood has no particular charm for me ! They 
 might at least have told me something a little more 
 definite about the woman they have picked out to 
 be the mother of my children. A man usually 
 likes to look an animal over before he purchases !" 
 
 Known to London society as Monsieur Zalen- 
 
 IO
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 ska, the Prince had come up to town with the 
 Verdaynes, and was apparently enjoying to the ut- 
 most the frivolities of London life. 
 
 At a fashionable garden party he sat alone, in 
 a seclusion he had long sought and had finally 
 managed to secure, behind a hedge of hawthorn 
 where none but lovers, and men and women trou- 
 bled as he was troubled, cared to conceal them- 
 selves. 
 
 The letter, long-expected and dreaded, had 
 finally crossed the continent to his hand. It 
 was only the written confirmation of the sen- 
 tence Fate had pronounced upon him, even as 
 it had pronounced similar sentences upon 
 princes and potentates since the beginning of 
 thrones and kingdoms. 
 
 While the Prince or Paul Zalenska, as I will 
 now call him sat in his brooding brown study, 
 clutching the imperial letter tightly in his young 
 hand, his attention was arrested by the sound of 
 voices on the other side of the hawthorn hedge. 
 
 He listened idly, at first, to what seemed to be 
 a one-sided conversation, in a dull, emotionless 
 feminine voice a discourse on fashion, society 
 
 II
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 chit-chat, and hopeless nonentities, interspersed 
 with bits of gossip. Could women never talk 
 about anything else? he thought impatiently. 
 
 But his displeasure did not seem to affect the 
 course of things at all. The voice, completely un- 
 conscious of the aversion it aroused in the invisible 
 listener, continued its dreary, expressionless mon- 
 otone. 
 
 "What makes you so silent, Opal ? You haven't 
 said a word to-day that you didn't absolutely have 
 to say. If all American girls are as dreamy as 
 you, I wonder why our English lords are so irre- 
 sistibly attracted across the water when in search 
 of brides!" 
 
 And then the Boy on the other side of the hedge 
 felt his sluggish pulse quicken, and almost started 
 to his feet, impelled by a sudden thrill of delight ; 
 for another voice had spoken a voice of such 
 infinite charm and sweetness and vitality, yet with 
 languorous suggestion of emotional heights and 
 depths, that he felt a vague sense of disappoint- 
 ment when the magnetic notes finally died away. 
 
 "Brides ?" the voice echoed, with a lilt of girlish 
 laughter running through the words. "You mean 
 
 12
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 'bribes,' don't you ? For I assure you, dear cousin, 
 it is the metallic clink of American gold, and noth- 
 ing else, that lures your great men over the sea. 
 As for my silence, ma belle, I have been uncom- 
 municative because there really seemed nothing at 
 all worth saying. I can't accustom myself to 
 small-talk I can't even listen to it patiently. I 
 always feel a wild impulse to fly far, far away, 
 where I can close my ears to it all and listen to my 
 own thoughts. I'm sorry if I disappoint you, 
 Alice I seem to disappoint everybody that I 
 would like to please but I assure you, laugh at 
 my dreams as you may, to me my dream-life is 
 far more attractive and beautiful than what you 
 term Life. Forgive me if I hurt you, cousin. I'm 
 peculiarly constituted, perhaps, but I don't like 
 this twaddle, and I can't help it! Everything in 
 England is so beautiful, and yet its society seems 
 so so hopelessly unsatisfactory to one who 
 longs to live!" 
 
 "To live, Opal? We are not dead, surely! 
 What do you mean by life?" 
 
 And so her name was Opal ! How curiously the 
 name suited the voice! The Boy, as he listened,
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 felt that no other name could possibly have 
 matched that voice the opal, that glorious gem 
 in which all the fires of the sun, the iridescent 
 glories of the rainbow, and the cold brilliance of 
 ice and frost and snow seemed to blend and crys- 
 tallize. All this, and more, was in that mysteri- 
 ously fascinating voice. 
 
 "To live, Alice ?" echoed the voice again. "To 
 live? Why, to live is to feel! to feel every emo- 
 tion of which the human soul is capable, to rise 
 to the heights of love, and knowledge, and power ; 
 to sink if need be to the deepest depths of de- 
 spair, but, at all costs, at all hazards, to live! 
 to experience in one's own nature all the reality 
 and fullness of the deathless emotions of life !" 
 
 The voice sank almost to the softness of a whis- 
 per, yet even then was vibrant, alive, intense. 
 
 "Ah, Alice, from my childhood up, I have 
 dreamed of life and longed for it. What life 
 really is, each must decide for himself, must he 
 not? Some, they say, sleep their way through a 
 dreamless existence, and never, never wake 
 to realities. Alice, I have sometimes wondered 
 if that was to be my fate, have wondered and
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 wondered until I have cried out in real terror at 
 the hideous prospect! Surely Fate could not be 
 so cruel as to implant such a desperate desire in 
 a soul that never was to know its fulfilment. 
 Could it, Alice? Tell me, could it?" 
 
 The Boy held his breath now. 
 
 Who was this girl, anyhow, who seemed to 
 express his own thoughts as accurately as he him- 
 self could have done? He was bored no longer. 
 He was roused, stirred, awakened and intensely 
 interested. It was as though the voice of his own 
 soul spoke to him in a dream. 
 
 The cold, lifeless voice now chimed in again. 
 In his impatience the Boy clenched his fists and 
 shut his teeth together hard. Why didn't she keep 
 still? He didn't want to miss a single note he 
 might have caught of the voice that other ! Why 
 did this nonentity for one didn't have to see her 
 to be sure that she was that have to interrupt 
 and rob him of his pleasure? 
 
 "I don't understand you, Opal," she was say- 
 ing. (Of course she didn't, thought the Boy 
 how could she?) "I am sure that I live. And 
 yet I have never felt that way thank goodness!
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 It's vulgar to feel too deeply, Mamma used to 
 say, and as I have grown older, I can see that she 
 was right. The best people never show any excess 
 of emotion. That is for tragedy queens, operatic 
 stars, and the women we do not talk about ! La- 
 dies cultivate repose!" 
 
 ("Repose! mon DieuT thought Paul, behind 
 the hedge. He wished that she would!) 
 
 "And yet, Alice, you are married!" 
 
 "Married? of course! why not?" and the 
 eavesdropper fancied he could see the wide-open 
 gaze of well-bred English surprise that accom- 
 panied the words. "One has to marry, of 
 course. That is what we are created for. But 
 one doesn't make a fuss about it. It's only a 
 custom a ceremony and doesn't change ex- 
 istence much for most women, if they choose 
 sensibly. Of course there is always the chance 
 of a mesalliance! A woman has to risk that." 
 
 "And you don't love?" 
 
 The Boy was struck by a note that was almost 
 horror in the opaline voice so near him. 
 
 "Love? Why, Opal, of course we do! It's 
 easy to love, you know, when a man is decent and 
 
 16
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 half-way good to one. I am sure I think a great 
 deal of Algernon; but I dare say I should have 
 thought as much of any other man I had hap- 
 pened to marry. That is a wife's duty !" 
 
 "Duty! and you call that love?" The hor- 
 ror in the tones had now changed to scorn. 
 
 "You have strange ideas of life, Opal. I should 
 be afraid to indulge them if I were you really 
 I should ! You have lived so much in books that 
 you seem to have a very garbled idea of the world. 
 Fiction is apt to be much of x fairy tale, a crazy 
 exaggeration of what living really consists of!" 
 
 "Afraid? Why should I be afraid? I am an 
 American girl, remember, and Americans are 
 afraid of nothing nothing! Come, cousin, tell 
 to me, if you can, why I should be afraid." 
 
 "Oh, I don't know! really I don-'t!" There 
 was a troubled, perplexed note in the English 
 voice now. " Such- notions are apt to get girls 
 into trouble, and lead them to some unhappy fate. 
 Too much 'life' as you call it must mean suf- 
 fering, and sorrow, and many tears and maybe, 
 sin!" 
 
 There was a shocked note in the voice of the
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 young English matron as she added the last word, 
 and her voice sank to a whisper. But Paul Zalen- 
 ska heard, and smiled. 
 
 "Suffering, and sorrow, and many tears," re- 
 peated the American girl, musingly, "and maybe 
 sin!" Then she went on, firmly, "Very well, 
 Alice, give me the suffering and sorrow, and many 
 tears and the sin, too, if it must be, for we are 
 all sinners of greater or less degree but at any 
 rate, give me life ! My life may still be far off in 
 the future, but when the time comes, I shall cer- 
 tainly know, and I shall live!" 
 
 "You are a peculiar girl, Opal, and we don't 
 say those things in England." 
 
 "No, you don't say those things, you cold Eng- 
 lish women ! You do not even feel them ! As for 
 sin, Alice, to my mind there can be no worse sin 
 under heaven than you commit when you give 
 yourself to a man whom you do not love better 
 than you could possibly love any other. Oh, it 
 is a sin it must be to sell yourself like that! 
 It's no wonder, I think, that your husbands are 
 so often driven to 'the women we do not talk 
 about' for consolation!" 
 
 18
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Opal! Opal! hush! What are you saying? 
 You really but see ! isn't that Algernon crossing 
 the terrace? He is probably looking for us." 
 
 "And like a dutiful English wife, you mustn't 
 fail to obey, I suppose! Lead the way, cousin 
 mine, and I'll promise to follow you with due 
 dignity and decorum." 
 
 And the rustle of silken skirts heralded the 
 departure of the ladies away from the hedge and 
 beyond Paul's hearing. 
 
 Then he too started at an eager, restless pace 
 for the centre of the crowd. He had quite forgot- 
 ten the future so carefully arranged for him, and 
 was off in hot pursuit of what? He did not 
 know ! He only knew that he had heard a voice, 
 and he followed! 
 
 As he rejoined the guests, he looked with awak- 
 ened interest into every face, listened with eager 
 intensity to every voice. But all in vain. It did 
 not occur to him that he might easily learn from 
 his hostess the identity of her American guest; 
 and even if the thought had presented itself to 
 him, he would never have acted upon it. The
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 experience was his alone, and he would have been 
 unwilling to share it with any one. 
 
 He was no longer bored as earlier in the after- 
 noon, and he carried the assurance of enthusiasm 
 and interest in his every glance and motion. Peo- 
 ple smiled at the solitary figure, and whispered 
 that he must have lost Verdayne. But for once 
 in his life, the Boy was not looking for his friend. 
 
 But neither did he find the voice! 
 
 Usually among the first to depart on such occa- 
 sions as these, this time he remained until almost 
 all the crowd had made their adieux. And it was 
 with a keen sense of disappointment that he at 
 last entered his carriage for the home of the Ver- 
 daynes. He was hearing again and again in the 
 words of the voice, as it echoed through his very 
 soul, "When my time comes, I shall certainly 
 know, and I shall live!" 
 
 The letter in his pocket no longer scorched the 
 flesh beneath. He had forgotten its very exist- 
 ence, nor did he once think of the Princess Elodie 
 of Austria. What had happened to him? 
 
 Had he fallen in love with a voice? 
 
 20
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IT was May at Verdayne Place, and May at 
 Verdayne Place was altogether different 
 from May in any other part of the world. 
 The skies were of a far deeper and richer blue; 
 the flowers reached a higher state of fragrant and 
 rainbow-hued perfection ; the sun shining through 
 the green of the trees was tempered to just the 
 right degree of shine and shadow. To an Eng- 
 lishman, home is the beginning and the end of the 
 world, and Paul Verdayne was a typical English- 
 man. 
 
 To be sure, it had not always been so, but Paul 
 had outlived his vagabond days and had become 
 thoroughly domesticated; yet there had been a 
 time in his youth when the wandering spirit had 
 filled his soul, when the love of adventure had 
 lent wings to his feet, and the glory of romance 
 had lured him to the lights and shadows of other 
 skies than these. But Verdayne was older now, 
 
 21
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 very much older ! He had lived his life, he said, 
 and settled down ! 
 
 In the shade of the tall trees of the park, two 
 men were drinking in the beauties of the season, 
 in all the glory and splendor of its ever-changing, 
 yet ever-enduring loveliness. One of them was 
 past forty, the ripeness of middle age and the gen- 
 eral air of a well-spent, well-directed, and fully- 
 developed life lending to his face and form an un- 
 usual distinction even in that land of distin- 
 guished men. His companion was a boy of twen- 
 ty, straight and tall and proud, carrying himself 
 with the regal grace of a Greek god. He was 
 ^"strong, handsome, healthy, well-built, and well- 
 instructed boy, a boy at whom any one who looked 
 once would be sure to look the second time, even 
 though he could not tell exactly wherein the pe- 
 culiar charm lay. Both men were fair of hair and 
 blue-eyed, with clear, clean skins and well-bred 
 English faces, and the critical observer could 
 scarcely fail to notice how curiously they resem- 
 bled each other. Indeed, the younger of the pair 
 might easily have been the replica of the elder's 
 youth. 
 
 22
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 When they spoke, however, the illusion of re- 
 semblance disappeared. In the voice of the Boy 
 was a certain vibrant note that was entirely lack- 
 ing in the deeper tones of the man not an ac- 
 cent, nor yet an inflection, but still a quality that 
 lent a subtle suggestion of foreign shores. It was 
 an expressive voice, neither languorous nor un- 
 duly forceful, but strangely magnetic, and ador- 
 ably rich and full, and musical, thrilling its hear- 
 ers with its suggestion of latent physical and spir- 
 itual force. 
 
 On the afternoon of which I write, those two 
 were facing a crisis that made them blind to every- 
 thing of lesser import. Paul Verdayne the man 
 realized this to the full. His companion the 
 Boy was dimly but just as acutely conscious of 
 it. The question had come at last the question 
 that Paul Verdayne had been dreading for years. 
 
 "Uncle Paul," the Boy was saying, "what rela- 
 tion are you to me ? You are not really my uncle, 
 though I have been taught to call you so after this 
 quaint English fashion of yours. I know it is 
 something of a secret, but I know no more ! We 
 are closer comrades, it seems to me you and I
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 than any others in all the world. We always un- 
 derstand each other, somehow, almost without 
 words is it not so ? I even bear your name, and 
 I am proud of it, because it is yours. But why 
 must there be so much mystery about our real re- 
 lationship? Won't you tell me just what I am to 
 you?" 
 
 The question, long-looked-for as it was, found 
 the elder man all unprepared. Is any one ever 
 ready for any dire calamity, however certainly ex- 
 pected? He paced up and down under the tall 
 trees of the park and for a time did not answer. 
 Then he paused and laid his hand upon the shoul- 
 der of the Boy with a tenderness of touch that 
 proved better than any words how close was the 
 bond between them. 
 
 "Tell you what you are to me! I could never, 
 never do that ! You are everything to me, every- 
 thing!" 
 
 The Boy made a motion as if to speak, but the 
 man forestalled him. 
 
 "We're jolly good friends, aren't we the very 
 best of companions ? In all the world there is no 
 man, woman or child that is half so near and dear
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 to me as you. Men don't usually talk about these 
 things to one another, you know, Boy ; but, though 
 I am a bachelor, you see, I feel toward you as most 
 men feel toward their sons. What does the mere 
 defining of the relationship matter? Could we 
 possibly be any more to each other than we are ?" 
 
 Paul Verdayne seated himself on a little knoll 
 beneath the shade of a giant oak. The Boy looked 
 at him with the wistfulness of an infinite question 
 in his gaze. 
 
 "No, no, Boy! Some time, perhaps yes, cer- 
 tainly you shall know all, all ! But that time has 
 not yet come, and for the present it is best that 
 things should rest as they are. Trust us, Boy 
 trust me and be patient !" 
 
 "Patient!" The Boy laughed a full, ringing 
 laugh, as he threw himself on the grass at his 
 companion's feet. "I have never learned the 
 word! Could you be patient, Uncle Paul, when 
 youth was all on fire in your heart, with your own 
 life shrouded in mystery? Could you, I say, be 
 patient then ?" 
 
 Verdayne laughed indulgently as his strong 
 fingers stroked the Boy's brown curls.
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Perhaps not, Boy, perhaps not ! But it is for 
 you," he continued, "for you, Boy, to make the 
 best of that life of yours, which you are pleased 
 to think clouded in such tantalizing mystery. It 
 is for you to develop every God-given faculty of 
 your being that all of us that love you may have 
 the happiness of seeing you perform wisely and 
 well the mission upon which you have been sent 
 to this kingdom of yours to accomplish. Boy! 
 every true man is a king in the might of his man- 
 hood, but upon you is bestowed a double portion 
 of that universal royalty. This is a throne-wor- 
 shipping world we are living in, Paul, and it 
 means even more than you can realize to be a 
 prince of the blood !" 
 
 The Boy looked around the park apprehen- 
 sively. What if someone heard? For this straight 
 young sapling, who was only the "Boy" to Paul 
 Verdayne, was to the world at large an heir to a 
 throne, a king who had been left in infancy the 
 sole ruler of his kingdom. 
 
 His visits to Verdayne Place were incognito. 
 He did like to throw aside the purple now and 
 then and be the real live boy he was at heart. He 
 
 26
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 did enjoy to the full his occasional opportunities, 
 unhampered by the trappings and obligations of 
 royalty. 
 
 "A prince of the blood !" he echoed scornfully. 
 "Bah ! what is that ? Merely an accident of 
 birth!" 
 
 "No, not an accident, Paul! Nothing in the 
 world ever is that. Every fragment of life has its 
 completing part somewhere, given its place in the 
 scheme of the universe by intricate design al- 
 ways by design! As for the duties of your king- 
 dom, my Prince, it is not like you to take them so 
 lightly." 
 
 "I know ! I know ! Yet everybody might have 
 been born a prince. It is far more to be a man !" 
 
 "True enough, Boy! yet everybody might not 
 have been born to your position. Only you could 
 have been given the heritage that is yours! My 
 Boy, yours is a mission, a responsibility, from the 
 Creator of Life Himself. Everybody can follow 
 but only God's chosen few can lead! And 
 you oh, Boy ! yours is a birthright above that of 
 all other princes if you only knew 1"
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 The young prince looked wistfully upward into 
 the eyes of the elder man. 
 
 "Tell me, Uncle Paul! Dmitry always speaks 
 of my birth with a reverence and awe quite out of 
 proportion to its possible consequence poor old 
 man. And once even the Grand Duke Peter spoke 
 of my 'divine origin,' though he could not be 
 coaxed or wheedled into committing his wise self 
 any further. Now you, yourself the most reserved 
 and secretive of individuals when it pleases you to 
 be so, have just been surprised into something of 
 the same expression. Do you wonder that I long 
 to unravel the mystery that you are all so deter- 
 mined to keep from me? I can learn nothing at 
 home absolutely nothing! They glorify my 
 mother God bless her memory ! Everyone wor- 
 ships her! But they never speak of you, and 
 they are silent, too, about my father. They sim- 
 ply won't tell me a thing about him, so I don't 
 imagine that he could have been a very good king ! 
 Was he, Uncle Paul ? Did you know him ?" 
 
 "I never knew the king, Boy ! never even saw 
 him!" 
 
 "But you must have heard " 
 
 28
 
 ONE D4Y 
 
 "Nothing, Boy, that I can tell you absolutely 
 nothing !" 
 
 Verdayne had risen again and was once more 
 pacing back and forth under the trees, as was his 
 wont when troubled with painful memories. 
 
 "But my mother you knew her!" 
 
 "Yes, yes I knew your mother!" 
 
 "Tell me about her !" 
 
 A dull, hopeless agony came into the eyes of 
 the older man. And so his Gethsemane had come 
 to him again! Every life has this garden to pass 
 through some, alas ! again and yet again ! And 
 Paul Verdayne had thought that he had long since 
 drained his cup of misery to the dregs. He knew 
 better now. 
 
 "Yes, I will tell you of your mother, Boy," he 
 said, and there was a strained, guarded note in his 
 voice which his companion's quick ear did not 
 fail to catch. "But you must be patient if you 
 wish to hear what little there is, after all, that I 
 can tell you. You must remember, my Boy, that 
 it is a long time since your mother died and 
 men of my age sometimes forget !" 
 
 "I will remember," the Boy said, gently. 
 
 29
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 But as he looked up into the face of his friend, 
 something in his heart told him that Paul Ver- 
 dayne did not forget! And somehow the older 
 man felt confident that the Boy knew, and was 
 strangely comforted by the silent sympathy be- 
 tween them which both felt, but neither could ex- 
 press. 
 
 "Your mother, Boy, was the noblest and most 
 beautiful woman that ever graced a throne. 
 Everyone who knew her must have said that! 
 You are very like her, Paul not in appearance, a 
 mistake of Fate to be everlastingly deplored, but 
 in spirit you are her living counterpart. Ah ! you 
 have a great example to live up to, Boy, in at- 
 tempting to follow her footsteps! There was 
 never a queen like her never!" 
 
 The young prince followed with the deepest ab- 
 sorption the words of the man who had known 
 his mother, hanging upon the story with the 
 breathless interest of a child in some fairy tale. 
 
 "She knew life as it is given few women to 
 know it. She was not more than thirty-five, I 
 think, when you were born, but she had crowded 
 into those years more knowledge of the world, in
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 all its myriad phases, than others seem to absorb 
 during their allotted three score and ten. And her 
 knowledge was not of the world alone, but of the 
 heart. She was full of ideals of advancement, of 
 growth, of doing and being something worthy the 
 greatest endeavor, exerting every hope and ambi- 
 tion to the utmost for the future splendor of her 
 kingdom your kingdom now. How she loved 
 you! what splendid achievements she expected 
 of you ! how she prayed that you might be grand, 
 and great, and true!" 
 
 "Did you always know her?" 
 
 "Always? no. Only for three weeks, Boy!" 
 
 "Three weeks! three little weeks! How 
 strange, then, that you should have learned so 
 much about her in that short space of time ! She 
 must indeed have made a strong impression upon 
 you!" 
 
 "Impression, you say? Boy, all that I am or 
 ever expect to become all that I know or ever 
 expect to learn all that I have done or ever ex- 
 pect to accomplish I owe to your mother. She 
 was the one inspiration of my life. Until I knew 
 her, I was a nonentity. It was she who awak-
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 ened me who taught me how to live! Three 
 weeks! Child! child! " 
 
 He caught himself sharply and bit his lip, forc- 
 ing back the impetuous words he had not meant 
 to say. The silence of years still shrouded those 
 mysterious three weeks, and the time had not yet 
 come when that silence could be broken. What 
 had he said? What possessed the Boy to-day to 
 cling so persistently to this hitherto forbidden 
 subject ? 
 
 "Where did you meet her, Uncle ?" 
 
 "At Lucerne!" 
 
 "Lucerne !" echoed the Boy, his blue eyes grow- 
 ing dreamy with musing. "That says nothing to 
 me nothing! and yet you will laugh at me, I 
 know, but I sometimes get the most tantalizing 
 impression that I remember my mother. It is ab- 
 surd, of course I suppose I could not possibly 
 remember her and yet there is such a haunting, 
 vague sense of close-clinging arms, of an intensely 
 white and tender face bending over me some- 
 times in the radiance of day and again in the soft 
 shadows of night, but always, always alight with 
 love of kisses, soft and warm, and yet often tear-
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 ful and of black, lustrous hair, over which there 
 always seems to shine a halo a very coronet of 
 triumphant motherhood." 
 
 Verdayne's lips moved, but no sound came from 
 them to voice the passionate cry in his heart, "My 
 Queen, my Queen !" 
 
 "I suppose it is only a curious dream ! It must 
 be, of course ! But it is a very real vision to me, 
 and I would not part with it for the world. 
 Uncle, do you know, I can never look upon the 
 pictured face of a Madonna without being forcibly 
 reminded of this vision of my mother the mother 
 I can see only in dreams !" 
 
 Verdayne found it growing harder and harder 
 for him to speak. 
 
 "I do not think that strange, Boy. Others 
 would not understand it, but I do. She was so 
 intensely a mother that the spirit of the great Holy 
 Mother must have been at all times hovering 
 closely about her! Her deepest desires centred 
 about her son. You were the embodiment of the 
 greatest, sweetest joys if not the only real joys 
 of her strangely unhappy life, and her whole 
 thought, her one hope, was for you. In your soul 
 
 33
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 must live all the unrealized hopes and crucified 
 ideals of the woman who, always every inch a 
 queen, was never more truly regal than in the 
 supreme hour that crowned her your mother." 
 
 "And am I like her, Uncle Paul ? Am I really 
 like her?" 
 
 "So much so, Boy, that she sometimes seems to 
 live again in you. Like her, you believe so thor- 
 oughly in the goodness and greatness of a God 
 in the beauty and glory of the world fraught with 
 lessons of life and death in the omnipotence of 
 Fate in the truth and power and grandeur of 
 overmastering love. You believe in the past, in 
 all the dreams and legends of the Long Ago still 
 relived in the Now, in the capabilities of the 
 human mind, the kingship of the soul. Your voice 
 is hers, every tone and cadence is as her own voice 
 repeating her own words. Be glad, Paul, that you 
 are like your mother, and hope that with the 
 power to think her thoughts and dream her 
 dreams, you may also have the power to love as 
 she loved, and, if need be, die her death !" 
 
 "But you think the same thoughts, Uncle Paul. 
 You believe all I believe !" 
 
 34
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Because she taught me, Paul because she 
 taught me ! I slept the sleep of the blind and deaf 
 and soulless until her touch woke my soul into 
 being. You have always been alive to the joy of 
 the world and the beauty of living. Your soul 
 was born with your body and lived purposefully 
 from the very beginning of things. You were 
 born for a purpose and that purpose showed itself 
 even in infancy." 
 
 A silence fell between the two men. A long 
 time they sat in that sympathetic communion, each 
 busy with his own thoughts. The older Paul was 
 lost in memories of the past, for his life lay all be- 
 hind him the younger Paul was indulging in 
 many dreams of a roseate future, for his life was 
 all ahead of him. 
 
 It was a friendship that the world often won- 
 dered about this strange intimacy between Paul 
 Verdayne, the famous Member of Parliament, and 
 the young man from abroad who called himself 
 Paul Zalenska. None knew exactly where Mon- 
 sieur Zalenska came from, and as they had long 
 ago learned the futility of questioning either of 
 the men about personal affairs, had at last recon- 
 
 35
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 tiled themselves to never finding out. Everyone 
 suspected that the Boy was a scion of rank and 
 some went so far as to say of royalty, but beyond 
 the fact that every May he came with his faithful, 
 foreign-looking attendant to Verdayne Place and 
 spent the summer months with the Verdayne fam- 
 ily, nothing definite was actually known. His el- 
 derly attendant certainly spoke some beastly for- 
 eign jargon and went by the equally beastly 
 foreign name of Vasili. He was known to wor- 
 ship his young master and to attend him with the 
 most marked servility, but he was never ques- 
 tioned, and had he been, would certainly have told 
 no tales. 
 
 The parents of Paul Verdayne Sir Charles 
 and Lady Henrietta were very fond of their 
 young guest, and made much of his annual visits. 
 As for Paul himself, he never seemed to be per- 
 fectly happy anywhere if the young fellow were 
 out of his sight. 
 
 He had made himself very much distinguished, 
 had this Paul Verdayne. He had found out how 
 to get the most out of his life and accomplish the 
 utmost good for himself and his England with
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 the natural endowments of his energetic and am- 
 bitious personality. He had become a famous 
 orator, a noted statesman, a man of brain as well 
 as brawn. People were glad to listen when he 
 talked. He inspired them with the idea so near- 
 ly extinct in this day and age of the world that 
 life after all was very much worth the living. He 
 stirred languid pulses with a dormant enthusi- 
 asm. He roused torpid brains to thought. He 
 had ideas and had also a way of making other 
 people share those ideas. England was proud of 
 Paul Verdayne, as she had good reason to be. 
 And he was only forty-three years old even now. 
 What might he not accomplish in the future for 
 the land to which he devoted all his talents, his 
 tireless, well-directed activities ? 
 
 He had given himself up so thoroughly to politi- 
 cal interests that he had not taken time to marry. 
 This was a great disappointment to his mother, 
 Lady Henrietta, who had set her heart upon wel- 
 coming a daughter-in-law and a houseful of 
 merry, romping grandchildren before the sun of 
 her life had gone down forever. It was also a 
 secret source of disappointment to certain younger 
 
 37
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 feminine hearts as well, who in the days of his 
 youth, and even in the ripeness of later years, had 
 regarded Paul Verdayne with eyes that found 
 him good to look upon. But the young politician 
 had never been a woman's man. He was chival- 
 rous, of course, as all well-bred Englishmen are, 
 but he kept himself as aloof from all society as 
 politeness would permit, and the attack of the 
 most skillfully aimed glances fell harmless, even 
 unheeded, upon his impenetrable armor. He 
 might have married wherever he had willed, but 
 Society and her fair votaries sighed and smiled in 
 vain, and finally decided to leave him alone, to 
 Verdayne's infinite relief. 
 
 As for the Boy, he was always, as I have said, 
 a mystery, always a topic for the consideration of 
 the gossips. Every year since he was a little 
 fellow six years old he had come to Verdayne 
 Place for the summer; at first, accompanied by 
 his nurse, Anna, and a silver-haired servant, curi- 
 ously named Dmitry. Later the nurse had ceased 
 to be a necessity, and the old servant had been 
 replaced by Vasili, a younger, but no less devoted 
 attendant. As the Boy grew older, he had learned
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 to hunt and took long rides with his then youthful 
 host across the wide stretch of English country 
 that made up the Verdayne estates and those of 
 the neighboring gentry. Often they cruised about 
 in distant waters, for the young fellow from his 
 earliest years shared with the elder an absorbing 
 love of nature in all her varied and glorious forms ; 
 and in February, always in February, Verdayne 
 found time to steal away from England for a brief 
 visit to that far-off country in the south of Europe 
 from which the Boy came. Many remembered 
 that Verdayne, like an uncle of his, Lord Hubert 
 Aldringham, had been much given to foreign 
 travel in his younger days and had made many 
 friends and acquaintances among the nobility and 
 royalty of other lands, and although it was 
 strange, they thought it was not at all improbable 
 that the lad was connected with some one of those 
 great families across the Channel. 
 
 As for Paul and the Boy, they knew not what 
 people thought or said, and cared still less. There 
 was too strong a bond of camaraderie between 
 them to be disturbed by the murmurings of a wind 
 that could blow neither of them good or ill. 
 
 39
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 And the Boy was now twenty years of age. 
 
 Suddenly Paul Zalenska broke their long 
 silence. 
 
 "Do you know, Uncle, I sometimes have a queer 
 feeling of fear that my father must have done 
 something terrible in his life something to make 
 strong men shrink and shudder at the thought ~ 
 something criminal! Oh, I dare not think of 
 that!" he went on hastily. "I dare not I dare 
 not ! I think the knowledge of it would drive me 
 mad!" 
 
 His voice sank to a half-whisper and there was 
 a note of horror in his words. 
 
 "But, what a king he must have been ! what a 
 miserable apology for all that royalty should be 
 by every law, human or divine! Why isn't his 
 name heralded over the length and breadth of the 
 kingdom in paeans of praise? Why isn't the 
 whole world talking of his valor, his beneficence, 
 his statesmanship ? What is a king created a king 
 for, if not to make history ?" 
 
 He fought silently for a moment to regain his 
 self-control, forcing the hideous idea from him 
 
 40
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 and at last speaking with an air of finality beyond 
 his years. 
 
 "No, I won't think of it ! May the King of the 
 world endow me with the strength of the gods and 
 the wisdom of the ancient seers, that I may make 
 up by my efficiency for all my father's deplorable 
 lack, and become all that my mother meant me 
 to be when she gave me to the world !" 
 
 He stretched out his arms in a passionate appeal 
 to Heaven, and Paul Verdayne, looking up at him, 
 realized as he had never before that the Boy cer- 
 tainly had within him the stuff of which kings 
 should be made. 
 
 The Boy was not going to disappoint him. He 
 was going to justify the high hopes cherished for 
 him so long. He was going to be a man after his 
 mother's own heart. 
 
 "Uncle," went on the Boy, wrought up to a 
 high pitch of emotion, and throwing himself 
 down again at Verdayne's feet, "I feel with Louis 
 XVI, 'I ar n too young to reign !' Why haven't 
 I ever had a father to teach and train me in the 
 way I should go? Every boy needs a good father, 
 princes most of all, so much more is expected of us
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 poor royal devils than of more ordinar and more 
 fortunate mortals! I know I shouldn' be com- 
 plaining like this certainly not to you, Uncle 
 Paul, who have been all most fathers are to most 
 boys ! But there are times, you know, when you 
 persist in keeping me at arm's length as you keep 
 everyone else ! When you put up that sign, 'Thus 
 far and no further !' I feel myself almost a stran- 
 ger! Won't you let me come nearer? Won't you 
 take down that barrier between us and let me 
 have a father at least, in name? I'm tired of 
 calling you 'Uncle' who uncle never was and never 
 could be! You're far more of a father really 
 you are ! Let me call you in name what you have 
 always been in spirit. Let me say 'Father Paul !' 
 I like the sound of it, don't you ? 'Father Paul !' 
 'Father Paul!'" 
 
 Paul Verdayne felt every drop of blood leave his 
 face. He felt as if the Boy had inadvertently laid 
 a cold hand upon his naked heart, chilling, paralyz- 
 ing its every beat. What did he mean ? The Boy 
 was just then looking thoughtfully at the setting 
 sun and did not see the change that his words 
 
 42
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 called into his companion's face thank heaven 
 for that ! but what could he mean ? 
 
 "You can call yourself my 'Father Confessor,' 
 you know, if you entertain any scruples as to the 
 propriety of a staid old bachelor's fathering a 
 stray young cub like me that will make it all 
 right, surely! You will let me, won't you? In 
 all the world there is no one so close to me as you, 
 and such dreams as I may happily bring to fulfill- 
 ment will be, more than you know, because of 
 your guidance, your inspiration. You are the 
 father of my spirit, whoever may have been the 
 father of my flesh ! Let it be hereafter, then, not 
 'Uncle,' but 'Father Paul' ! " 
 
 And the older man, rising and standing by the 
 Boy, threw his arm around the young shoulders, 
 and gazing far off to the distant west, felt himself 
 shaken by a strange emotion as he answered, 
 "Yes, Boy, hereafter let it be 'Father Paul !' " 
 
 And as the sun travelled faster and faster to- 
 ward the line of its crossing between the worlds of 
 night and day, its rays reflected a new radiance 
 upon the faces of the two men who sat in the 
 silent shadows of the park, feeling themselves 
 
 43
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 drawn more closely together than ever before, 
 thinking, thinking-, thinking- in the eyes of the 
 man a great memory, in the eyes of the Boy a 
 great longing for life! 
 
 The two friends ran up to London for the the- 
 atre that night, to see a famous actor in a popular 
 play, but neither was much interested in the per- 
 formance. Something had kindled in the heart of 
 the man a reminiscent fire and the Boy was think- 
 ing his own thoughts and listening, ever listening. 
 
 "I'm several kinds of a fool," he thought, "but 
 I'd like to hear that voice again and get a glimpse 
 of the face that goes with it. I dare say she is 
 anything but attractive in the flesh if she is 
 really in the flesh at all, which I am beginning to 
 doubt so I should be disenchanted if I were to 
 see her, I suppose. But I'd like to know!" Yet, 
 after all, he could not comprehend how such a 
 voice could accompany an unattractive face. The 
 spirit that animated those tones must needs light 
 up the most ordinary countenance with character, 
 
 44
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 if not with beauty, he thought ; but he saw no face 
 in the vast audience to which he cared to assign it. 
 No, she wasn't there. He was sure of that. 
 
 But as they left the building and stood upon the 
 pavement, awaiting their carriage, his blood 
 mounted to his face, dyeing it crimson. In the 
 sudden silence that mysteriously falls on even vast 
 crowds, sometimes, he heard that voice again ! 
 
 It was only a snatch of mischievous laughter 
 from a brougham just being driven away from the 
 curb, but it was unmistakably the voice. Had the 
 Boy been alone he would have followed the 
 brougham and solved the mystery then and there. 
 
 The laugh rang out again on the summer even- 
 ing air. It was like a lilt of fairies' merriment in 
 the moonlit revels of Far Away ! It was the note 
 of a siren's song, calling, calling the hearts and 
 souls of men! It was But the Boy stopped 
 and shook himself free from the "sentimental rot" 
 he was indulging in. 
 
 He turned with a question on his lips, but Ver- 
 dane had noticed nothing and the Boy did not 
 speak.
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Still that laugh thrilled and mocked him all the 
 way to Berkeley Square and lured him on and on 
 through the night's mysterious dreams. 
 
 46
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IN the drawing room of her mansion on 
 Grosvenor Square, Lady Alice Mordaunt 
 was pouring tea, and talking as usual the 
 same trifling commonplaces that had on a pre- 
 vious occasion excited her cousin's disdain. 
 Opposite her sat her mother, Lady Fletcher, a 
 perfect model of the well-bred English matron, 
 while Opal Ledoux, in the daintiest and fluffiest 
 of summer costumes, was curled up like a kitten 
 in a corner of the window-seat, apparently en- 
 grossed in a book, but in reality watching the 
 passers-by. 
 
 From her childhood up she had lived in. a 
 Castle of Dreams, which she had peopled with the 
 sort of men and women that suited her own 
 fanciful romantic ideas, and where she herself 
 was supposed to lie asleep until her ideal knight, 
 the Prince Charming of the story, came across 
 
 47
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 land and sea to storm the Castle and wake her 
 with a kiss. 
 
 It was made up of moonbeams and rays of 
 sunshine and rainbow-gleams this dream 
 woven by fairy fingers into so fragile a cobweb 
 that it seemed absurd to think it could stand the 
 winds and torrents of Grown-Up Land; but 
 Opal, in spite of her eighteen years, was still 
 awaiting the coming of her ideal knight, though 
 the stage setting of the drama, and her picture 
 of just how the Prince Charming of her dreams 
 was to look, and what he would say, had 
 changed materially with the passing of the years. 
 
 If sometimes she wove strange lines of tragedy 
 throughout the dreams, out of the threads of 
 shadow that flitted across the sunshine of her 
 life, she did not reject them. She felt they be- 
 longed there and did not shrink, even when her 
 young face paled at the curious self-pity the 
 passing of the thought invoked. 
 
 Hers was a strange mixture, made up of an 
 unusual intermingling of many bloods. Born in 
 New Orleans, of a father who was a direct 
 descendant of the early French settlers of Louis-
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 iana, and of a Creole mother, who might have 
 traced her ancestry back to one of the old gran- 
 dees of Spain, she yet clung with a jealous affec- 
 tion to the land of -her birth and called herself 
 defiantly "a thorough-bred American!" Her 
 mother had died in giving her birth, and her 
 father, while she was still too young to remem- 
 ber, had married a fair Englishwoman who had 
 tried hard to be a mother to the strange little 
 creature whose blood leaped and danced within 
 her veins with all the fire and romance of for- 
 eign suns. Gay and pleasure-mad as she usually 
 appeared, there was always the shadow of a 
 heartache in her eye, and one felt the possibility 
 of a tragedy in her nature. In fact one felt in- 
 tuitively sorry almost afraid for her lest her 
 daring, adventurous spirit should lead her too 
 close to the precipice along the rocky pathway 
 of life. 
 
 She was thinking many strange thoughts as 
 she sat looking out of the window. Her English 
 cousins, related to her only through her step- 
 mother, yet called kin for courtesy's sake, had 
 given up trying to understand her complexities, 
 
 49
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 as she had likewise given up trying to explain 
 herself. If they were pleased forever to consider 
 her in the light of a conundrum, she thought, 
 why let them! 
 
 After a while the ladies at the tea-table began 
 to chat in more confidential tones. Opal was 
 not too oblivious to her surroundings to notice, 
 nor to grasp the fact that they were discussing 
 her, but that knowledge did not interest her. 
 She was so used to being considered a curiosity 
 that it had ceased to have any special concern 
 for her. She only hoped that they would some- 
 time succeed in understanding her better than 
 she had yet learned to understand herself. It 
 might have interested her, however, had she 
 overheard this particular conversation, for it 
 shed a great light upon certain shades of char- 
 acter she had discovered in herself and often 
 wondered about, but had never had explained to 
 her. 
 
 But she did not hear. 
 
 "I am greatly concerned about Opal," Lady 
 Alice was saying. "She is the most difficult 
 creature, Mamma you've no idea how peculiar
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 with the most dangerous, positively immoral 
 ideas. I do wish she were safely married, for 
 then well, there is really no knowing what 
 might happen to a girl who thinks and talks as 
 she does. I used to think it might be a sort of 
 American pose put on for startling effect, you 
 know but I begin to think she actually 
 nieanb it!" 
 
 "Yes, she means it," replied Lady Fletcher, 
 lowering her voice discreetly, till it was little 
 more than a whisper. "She has always had just 
 such notions. It gives Amy a great deal of 
 trouble and worry to keep her straight. You 
 know or perhaps you didn't know, for we don't 
 talk of these things often, especially when they 
 are in one's family but there is a bad strain in 
 her blood and they are always looking for it to 
 crop out somewhere. Her mother married hap- 
 pily and escaped the curse but for several 
 generations back the women of her family have 
 been of peculiar temperament and they've 
 usually gone wrong sometime in their lives. It 
 seems to be in the blood. They can't help it. 
 Mr. Ledoux told Amy all about it at the time
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 of their marriage, and that is the reason they 
 have tried to keep Opal as secluded as possible 
 from the usual free-and-easy associations of 
 American girls, and are so anxious to marry her 
 otT wisely." 
 
 "And speedily," put in Alice "the sooner the 
 better!" 
 
 "Yes, yes speedily!" 
 
 Lady Fletcher gave an uneasy glance in 
 Opal's direction before she continued. 
 
 "You are too young to have heard the story, 
 Alice, but her grandmother a black-eyed Span- 
 ish lady of high rank was made quite unpleas- 
 antly notorious by her associations with a 
 brother of Lady Henrietta Verdayne. He was 
 an unprincipled roue this Lord Hubert Ald- 
 ringham a libertine who openly boasted of the 
 conquests he had made abroad. Being appointed 
 to many foreign posts in the diplomatic service, 
 he was naturally on intimate terms with people 
 of rank and royalty. They say he was very fas- 
 cinating, with the devil's own eye, and ten times 
 as devilish a heart " 
 
 "Why, Mamma!" 
 
 52
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Alice was shocked. 
 
 "I am only repeating what they said, child," 
 apologized the elder woman meekly. "Women 
 will be fools, you know, over a handsome face 
 and a tender voice some women, I mean and 
 that's what Opal has to fight against." 
 
 "Poor Opal," murmured Alice, "I did not 
 know!" 
 
 "Some even go so far as to say " 
 
 Again Lady Fletcher looked up apprehen- 
 sively, but Opal was still absorbed in her 
 dreams. 
 
 "To say what, Mother? 
 
 "Well, of course it's only talk nobody can 
 actually know, I suppose, and I wouldn't, of 
 course, be quoted as saying anything for the 
 world, dear knows; but they say that it is more 
 than probable that Opal's mother was . . . 
 Lord Hubert's own daughter!" 
 
 "Oh, Mother! If it is true if it could be 
 true what a fight for her!" 
 
 "Yes, and the worst of it is with Opal, she 
 won't fight. She has been rigidly trained in the 
 principles of virtue and propriety from her very 
 
 53
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 birth, and yet she horrifies every one at times 
 by shocking ideas that no one knows where 
 she gets, nor, worse yet, where they may lead!" 
 
 "But she is good, Mother. She has the 
 noblest ideas of charity and kindness and altru- 
 ism, of the advancement of all that's good and 
 true in the world, of the attainment of knowl- 
 edge, of the beauties and consolation of religion. 
 It's fine to hear her talk when she's inspired 
 not a bit preachy, you know she's certainly far 
 enough from that but more like reading some 
 beautiful poem you can but half understand, or 
 listening to music that makes you wish you were 
 better, whether you take in its full meaning 
 or not." 
 
 This was a long speech for Lady Alice. Her 
 mother looked at her in amazement. There cer- 
 tainly must be something out of the ordinary in 
 this peculiar American cousin to wake Alice 
 from her customary languor. 
 
 Alice smiled at her mother's surprise. 
 
 "Strange, isn't it, Mother?" she asked, half 
 ashamed of her unusual enthusiasm. "But it's 
 true. She'd help some good man to be a power
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 in the world. I feel it so often when she talks. I 
 didn't know women ever thought such thing's as 
 she does. I I I believe we can trust her, 
 Mother, to steer clear of everything!" 
 
 "I hope so, Alice; I am sure I hope so, but 
 I don't know. I am afraid it was a mistake to 
 keep her so much alone. It gives her more un- 
 real ideas of life than actual contact with the 
 world would have done." 
 
 Opal Ledoux left the window and sauntered 
 down the long drawing-room toward the table 
 where the speakers were sitting. 
 
 "What are you talking about? me?" 
 
 The cousins were surprised and showed it by 
 blushing guiltily. 
 
 Opal laughed merrily. 
 
 "Dreary subject for a dreary day! I hope you 
 found it more interesting than I have!" And 
 she stretched her small figure to its utmost 
 height, which was not a bit above five foot, and 
 shrugged her shoulders lazily. 
 
 "What are you reading, Opal?" asked Lady 
 Fletcher, in an effort to change the subject, look-
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 ing with some interest at the volume that the girl 
 carried. 
 
 "Don't ask me all twaddle and moonshine! 
 I ought not to waste my valuable time with such 
 trash. There isn't a real character in the book, 
 not one. When I write a book, and I presume I 
 shall some time, if I live long enough, I shall 
 put people into it who have real flesh and blood 
 in them and who do startling things. But I'll 
 have to live it all first !" 
 
 "Live the startling things, Opal? God for- 
 bid!" 
 
 "Surely! Why not?" 
 
 And Opal dropped listlessly into a chair, 
 tossed the offending book on a table, and taking 
 a cup of tea from the hand of her cousin, began 
 to sip it with an air of languid indifference, 
 which sat strangely on her youthful, almost 
 childlike figure. 
 
 "By the way, Alice," she asked carelessly, 
 "who was the young man who stared at us so 
 rudely last night as we drove away from the 
 theatre?"
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "I saw no young man staring, Opal. Where 
 was he?" 
 
 "Why, he stood on the pavement, waiting, I 
 suppose, for his carriage, and as we drove away 
 he looked at me as though he thought I had 
 no right to live, and still less to iaugh I believe 
 I was laughing and as we turned the corner 
 I peeped back through the curtain, and 
 he still stood there in the full glare of the 
 light, staring. It's impolite, cousins very! 
 Gentlemen don't stare at girls in America!" 
 
 "What did he look like, Opal?" asked Lady 
 Fletcher. 
 
 "Like a Greek god!" answered the girl, with- 
 out a second's hesitation. 
 
 "What!" 
 
 Both women gasped, simultaneously. They 
 were dismayed. 
 
 "Oh, don't be shocked! He had the full pan- 
 oply of society war-paint on. He was certainly 
 properly clothed, but as to his being in his right 
 mind, I have my doubts serious doubts! He 
 stared!" 
 
 "I hope you didn't stare at him, OpalP 
 
 57
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Well, I did! What could he expect? And I 
 laughed at him, too! But I don't believe he saw 
 me at all, more's the pity. I am quite sure he 
 would have fallen in love with me if he had!" 
 
 "Opal!" 
 
 Opal was thoroughly enjoying herself now. 
 She did enjoy shocking people who were so de- 
 lightfully shockable! 
 
 "Why, 'Opal'?" and her mimicry was irresist- 
 ible. "Don't you think I'm a bit lovable, 
 cousin? not a bit? You discourage me! I'm 
 doomed to be a spinster, I suppose! Ah, me! 
 And I'd far rather be the spinster's cat ! Cats 
 aren't worried about the conventions and all 
 that sort of thing. Happy animals! While we 
 poor two-footed ones they call human only we 
 aren't really more than half so have to keep 
 our claws well hidden and purr 'hypocritically, 
 no matter how roughly the world rub's our fur 
 the wrong way, nor how wild we are to scratch 
 and spit and bristle! Wouldn't you like to be a 
 cat, Alice?" 
 
 "Goodness, child! What an ide?' I am very
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 well contented, Opal, with the sphere of life into 
 which I have been placed!" 
 
 "Happy, happy Alice! May that state of 
 mind endure forever! But come! Haven't you 
 an idea, either of you, who my Knight of the 
 Stare can be?" 
 
 "You didn't describe him, Opal." 
 
 Opal opened her eyes in wide surprise. 
 
 "Didn't I? Why, I thought I did, graphic- 
 ally! A Greek god, dressed en regie. What 
 more do you want? I am sure anyone ought to 
 recognize him by that." 
 
 Her listeners looked at her in real consterna- 
 tion, which she was quhk to see. Her eyes 
 danced. 
 
 "Well, if you insist upon details, I can supply 
 a few, I guess, if I try. I am really dying of 
 curiosity to know who he is and why he stared. 
 Of course I didn't look at him very closely. It 
 wouldn't have been er what do you call it? 
 proper. And of course I could not see clearly at 
 night, anyway. But I did notice he was about 
 six feet tall. Imagine me, poor little me, look- 
 ing up to six feet! With broad shoulders; an 
 
 59
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 athletic, muscular figure, like a young Hercules; 
 a well-shaped head, like Apollo's, covered with 
 curls of fair hair; a smooth, clear skin, with the 
 tint of the rose in his cheek that deepened to 
 blood-red when his blue eyes, in which the skies 
 of all the world seemed to be mirrored, stared 
 with an expression like that of a man upon 
 whom the splendor of some glorious Paradise 
 was just dawnin-g. He looked like an English- 
 man, yet something in his attitude and general 
 appearance made me think that he was not. His 
 hands " 
 
 "Opal! Opal! What do you mean? How 
 could you see so much of a young man in so 
 short a time? And at night, too?" 
 
 Opal pouted. 
 
 "You wanted a detailed description. I was 
 trying to give it to you. As I told you at the 
 start, I couldn't see much. But anyway, he 
 stared!" 
 
 "And I dare say he wasn't the only one who 
 stared !" put in Lady Alice in dry tones of repre- 
 hension. "I can't imagine who it could be, can 
 you, mother?" 
 
 60
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Not unless it was that strange young Mon- 
 sieur Zalenska Paul Zalenska, 1 believe he call* 
 himself Paul Verdayne's guest. I rather 
 think, from the description, that it must have 
 been he!" 
 
 "Zalenska? What a name! I wonder if he 
 won't let me call him Taul!' " said the incorrigi- 
 ble Opal, musingly. "I shall ask him the first 
 time I see him. Paul's a pretty name! I like 
 that but I'll never, never be able to twist my 
 tongue around the other. He'd get out of hear- 
 ing before I could call him and that would never 
 do at all! But 'Monsieur,' you say? Why 
 'Monsieur'? He certainly doesn't look at all 
 like a Frenchman!" 
 
 "No one knows what he is, Opal; nor who. 
 That is, no one but the Verdaynes. He has 
 always made a mystery of himself." 
 
 Opal clapped her small hands childishly. 
 
 "Charming! My ideal knight in the flesh! 
 But how shall I attract him?" 
 
 She knitted her brows and pondered as ser- 
 iously as though the fate of nations depended 
 upon her decision. 
 
 61
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Shall I send him my card, Alice, and ask him 
 to call? Or would it be better to make an ap- 
 pointment with him for the Park? Perhaps a 
 'personal' in the News would answer my pur- 
 pose do you think he reads the News, or would 
 the Times be better? Come, cousins, what do 
 you think? I am so young, you know! Please 
 advise me." 
 
 She clasped her hands in a charming gesture 
 of helpless appeal and the ladies looked at one 
 another in horrified silence. What unheard of 
 thing would this impossible girl propose next! 
 They would be thankful when they saw her once 
 more safely embarked for the "land of the free," 
 and out from under their chaperonage, they 
 hoped, forever. They realized that she was quite 
 beyond their restraining powers. Had she no 
 sense of decency at all? 
 
 The door opened, callers were announced, and 
 the day was saved. 
 
 Opal straightened up, put on what she called 
 her '"best dignity" and comported herself in so 
 very well-bred and amiable a manner that her 
 cousins quite forgave all her past delinquencies 
 
 62
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 and smiled approval upon the charming cour- 
 tesy she extended to their guests. She could be 
 such a lady when she would ! No one could resist 
 her! And yet they felt themselves sitting upon 
 the crater of a volcano liable to erupt at any 
 Tioment. One never felt quite safe with Opal. 
 
 But, much to their surprise and relief, every- 
 thing went beautifully, and the guests departed, 
 delighted with Lady Alice's "charming Amer- 
 ican cousin, so sweet, so dainty, so witty, so bril- 
 liant, and altogether lovely really quite a dear, 
 you know!" 
 
 But for all that, Lady Alice Mordaunt and 
 Lady Fletcher were far from feeling easy over 
 their guest, and ardently wished that the girl's 
 father would cut short his visit to France and 
 return to take her back with him to America. 
 And while these two worthy ladies worried and 
 fretted, Opal Ledoux laughed and dreamed. 
 
 And in a big mansion over in Berkeley 
 Square Monsieur Paul Zalenska wondered and 
 listened.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IT was a whole two weeks after the Boy's 
 experience at the theatre, and though the 
 echoes of that mysterious voice still rang 
 through all his dreams at night, and most of his 
 waking hours, he had not heard its lilt again. 
 
 Paul Verdayne smiled to himself to note the 
 youngster's sudden interest in society. He had 
 not strange as it may seem been told a word 
 of the experience, but he was not curious. He 
 certainly knew the world, if anyone knew it, and 
 though he was sure he recognized the symp- 
 toms, he had too much tact to ask, "Who is the 
 girl?" 
 
 "Let the Boy have his little secrets," he 
 thought, remembering his own callow days. 
 "They will do him good."' 
 
 And though the Boy felt an undue sense of 
 guilt, he continued to keep his lips closed and 
 his eyes and ears open, though it often seemed 
 
 6s
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 so utterly useless to do so. Sometimes he won- 
 dered if he had dropped to sleep, there behind 
 the hawthorn hedge that afternoon, and 
 dreamed it all. 
 
 Verdayne and the Boy were sitting at lunch- 
 eon at the Savoy. Sir Charles and Lady Hen- 
 rietta had gone down to Verdayne Place for a 
 week, and the two men were spending most of 
 their time away from the lonely house in Berke- 
 ley Square. 
 
 That day they were discussing the Boy's 
 matrimonial prospects as proposed by the Grand 
 Duke Peter indeed, they were usually discuss- 
 ing them. The Boy had written, signifying his 
 acceptance and approval of the arrangements as 
 made. Nothing else was expected of him for 
 the present, but his nature had not ceased its 
 revolt against the decree -of Fate, and Paul Ver- 
 dayne shared his feeling of repugnance to the ut- 
 most. Perhaps Verdayne felt it even more 
 acutely than the young Prince himself, for he 
 knew so much better all that the Boy was sacri- 
 ficing. But he also knew, as did the poor royal 
 victim himself, that it was inevitable.. 
 
 66
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "I don't wonder at the court escapades that 
 occasionally scandalize all Europe," said the 
 Boy. "I don't wonder at all! The real wonder 
 is that more of the poor slaves to royalty do not 
 snap the chains that bind them, and bolt for 
 freedom. It would be like me, very like me!" 
 
 And Verdayne could say nothing. He knew 
 of more reasons than one why it would be very 
 like the Boy to do such a thing, and he sighed as 
 he thought that some time, perhaps, he might 
 do it. And yet he could not blame him! 
 
 "Father Paul," went on the Boy, his thoughts 
 taking a new turn, "you are a bachelor a hope- 
 less old bachelor and you have never told me 
 why. Of course there's a woman or two in it! 
 We have talked about everything else under the 
 sun, I think you and I but, curiously enough, 
 we have never talked of love! Yet I feel sure 
 that you believe in it. Don't you, Father Paul? 
 Come now, confess! I am in a mood for senti- 
 ment to-day, and I want to hear what drove you 
 to a life of single blessedness what made my 
 romantic old pal such a confirmed old celibate! 
 I don't believe that you object to matrimony on 
 
 6 7
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 general principles. Tell me your love-story, 
 please, Father Paul." 
 
 "What makes you so certain that I have had 
 one, Boy?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know just why, but I am certain! 
 It's there in your lips when you smile, in your 
 eyes when you are moved, in your voice when 
 you allow yourself to become reminiscent. You 
 are full of memories that you have never spoken 
 of to me. And now, Father Paul now is the 
 accepted time!" 
 
 For a moment Verdayne was nonplussed. 
 What could he reply? There was only one love- 
 story in his life, arid that one would end only 
 with his own existence, but he could not tell 
 that story to the Boy yet! Suddenly, how- 
 ever, an old, half-forgotten memory flashed 
 across his mind. Of course 'he had a love-story. 
 He would tell the Boy the story of Isabella 
 Waring. 
 
 So, as they sat together over their coffee and 
 cigarettes, Verdayne told his young guest about 
 the Curate's daughter, who had all uncon- 
 sciously wielded such an influence over the 
 
 68
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 events of his past life. He told of the girl's 
 kindness to him when he had broken his collar- 
 bone; of her assistance so freely offered to his 
 mother; of her jolly, lively spirits, her amiable 
 disposition and general gay good-fellowship; 
 2nd then of the unlucky kiss that had aroused 
 the suspicion and august displeasure of Lady 
 Henrietta, and had sent her erring son a wan- 
 derer over the face of Europe to forget ! 
 
 He painted his sadness at leaving home and 
 Isabella in pathetic colors. Indeed, he became 
 quite affecting when he pictured his parting 
 with Isabella, and when in repeating his parting 
 words, he managed to get just the right sus- 
 picion of a tremble into his voice, he really felt 
 quite proud of his ability as a story-teller. 
 
 The Boy was plainly touched. 
 
 "What foolishness to think that such a love 
 as yours could be cured merely by sending you 
 abroad!" he said. 
 
 "Just what I thought, Boy utter folly!" 
 
 "Of course it didn't cure you, Father Paul. 
 You didn't learn to forget, did you? Oh, it was 
 cruel to send you away when you loved her like
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 that! I didn't think it of Aunt Henrietta I 
 didn't indeed!" 
 
 "Oh, you mustn't blame mother, Boy. She 
 meant it for the best, just as your Uncle Peter 
 now means it for the best for you and yours. 
 She thought I would forget." 
 
 "Was she very, very beautiful, Father Paul? 
 But of course she was, if you loved her !" 
 
 "She was pretty, Boy at least I thought so." 
 
 "Big or little?" 
 
 "Tall very tall." 
 
 "I like tall, magnificent women. There's 
 something majestic about them. I hope the 
 Princess Elodie" and the Boy made a wry face 
 "will be quite six foot tall. I could never love 
 a woman small either in body or mind. I am 
 sure I should have liked your Isabella, Father 
 Paul. Majestic women of majestic minds for 
 me, for there you have the royal stamp of nature 
 that makes some women born to the purple. 
 Yes, I am sure I should have liked Isabella. Tell 
 me more." 
 
 Paul Verdayne smiled. He should hardly 
 
 70
 
 ONE DAT 
 
 have considered Isabella Waring in any degree 
 "majestic" but he did not say so. 
 
 "She was charmingly healthy and robust 
 athletic, you know, and all that with light 
 fluffy hair. I believe she used to wear it in a net. 
 Blue eyes, of course thoroughly English, you 
 know and a fine comrade. Liked everything 
 that I liked, as most girls at that age didn't, 
 naturally. Of course, mother couldn't appreci- 
 ate her. She wasn't her style at all. And she 
 naturally thought mother did, I mean that 
 when she sent me away 'for my health' " the 
 Boy smiled "that I'd forget all about her." 
 
 Verdayne began to think he wasn't telling it 
 well after all. He looked out of the window. It 
 was getting hard to meet the frank look in the 
 Boy's blue eyes. 
 
 "Forget!" and there was a fine scorn in the 
 tones of the young enthusiast. "But you 
 didn't! you didn't! I'm sure you didn't!" 
 
 The romantic story appealed strongly to the 
 Boy's mood. 
 
 "But why didn't you marry her when you 
 came back, Father Paul? Did she die?"
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "No, she didn't die. She is still living, I be- 
 lieve." 
 
 "Then why didn't you marry her, Father 
 Paul? Did they still oppose it? Surely when 
 you came home and they saw you had not for- 
 gotten, it was different. Tell me how it was 
 when you came home." 
 
 And Paul Verdayne, in a voice he tried his 
 best to make very sad and heart-broken, replied 
 with downcast eyes, "When I came home, Boy, 
 I found Isabella Waring ready to marry a 
 curate, and happy over the prospect of an early 
 wedding. So, you see, my share in her life was 
 over." 
 
 The Boy's face fell. He had not anticipated 
 this ending to the romance. How could any 
 woman ever have proved faithless to his Father 
 Paul! And how could he, poor man, still keep 
 his firm, dauntless belief in the goodness and 
 truth of human nature after so bitter an experi- 
 ence as this! It shocked his sense of right and 
 justice this story. He wished he had not 
 asked to hear it. 
 
 "Thank you for telling me, Father Paul. It 
 
 72
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 was kind of you to open your past life to me like 
 this, and very unkind of me to ask what I should 
 have known would cost you such pain to tell. I 
 am truly sorry for it all, Father Paul. Thank 
 you again and forgive me!" 
 
 "It's a relief to open one's heart, sometimes, 
 to one who can sympathize," replied Verdayne, 
 with a deep sigh. But he felt like a miserable 
 hypocrite. 
 
 Poor Isabella Waring! He had hardly given 
 her a passing thought in twenty years. And 
 now he had vilified her to help himself out of 
 a tight corner. Well, she was always a good 
 sort. She wouldn't mind being used or even 
 misused to help out her "old pal" this way. 
 Still it made him feel mean, and he was glad 
 when the Boy dropped the subject and turned 
 again to his own difficulties. 
 
 But the mind of the young prince was restive, 
 that day. Nothing held his attention long. It 
 seemed, like his eye, to be roving hither and 
 thither, seeking something it never could find. 
 
 "You have been to America, Father Paul, 
 haven't you?" he asked. 
 
 73
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 America? Yes, Verdayne had been to Amer 
 ica. It was in America that he had passed on^ 
 season of keenest anguish. He had good reason 
 to remember it such good reason that in all 
 their wanderings about the world he had never 
 seen fit to take the Boy there. 
 
 But something had aroused the young fel- 
 low's passing interest, and now nothing would 
 satisfy him save that he must hear all about 
 America; and so, for a full hour, as best he could, 
 Verdayne described the country of the far West 
 as he remembered it. 
 
 "Nothing in America appealed to me so 
 strongly as the gigantic prairies," he said at last. 
 "You were so deeply moved by our trip to 
 Africa, Boy, that you must remember the im- 
 pression of vastness and infinity the great desert 
 made upon us. Well, in the glorious West of 
 America it is as if the desert had sprung to life, 
 and from every grain of sand had been born a 
 blade of grass, waving and fluttering with the 
 joy of new birth. Oh, it is truly wonderful, 
 Paul! Once I went there with the soil of my 
 heart scorched as dry and lifeless as the burning 
 
 74
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 sands of Sahara, but in that revelation of a new 
 creation, some pulse within me sprang myster- 
 iously into being again. It could never be the 
 same heart that it once was, but it would now 
 know the semblance of a new existence. And I 
 took up the burden of life again albeit a 
 strange, new life and came home to fight it 
 out. The prairies did all that for me, Boy !" He 
 paused for a moment, and then spoke in a sadder 
 tone. "It was soon after that, Paul, that I first 
 found you." 
 
 Paul Zalenska thought that he understood. 
 That, of course, was after Isabella Waring had 
 wrecked his life. Cruel, heartless Isabella! He 
 had never even heard her name before to-day, 
 but he hated her, wherever she might be! 
 
 "There is a legend they tell out there that is 
 very pretty and appropriate," went on Ver- 
 dayne, dreamily. "They say that when the Crea- 
 tor made the world, He had indiscriminately 
 strewn continents and valleys, mountains and seas, 
 islands and lakes, until He came to the western 
 part of America, and despite His omnipotence, 
 was puzzled to know what new glories He could
 
 OA r E DAY 
 
 possibly contrive for this corner of the earth. 
 Something majestic and mighty it must be, He 
 thought, and yet of an altogether different 
 beauty from that in the rest of the universe 
 something individual, distinctive. The seas still 
 overflowed the land, as they had through past 
 eternities, awaiting His touch to call into form 
 and being the elements still sleeping beneath 
 the water the living representation of His 
 thought. Suddenly stretching out His rod, He 
 bade the waters recede and they did so, leav- 
 ing a vast extent of grassy land where the majes- 
 tic waves had so lately rolled and tossed. And 
 it is said that the land retains to thfe day the 
 memory of the sea it then was, while the grasses 
 wave with a subtle suggestion of the ocean's ebb 
 and flow beneath the influence of a wind that is 
 like no other wind in the world so much as an 
 ocean breeze; while the gulls, having so well 
 learned their course, fly back and forth as they 
 did before the mystic change from water into 
 earth. Indeed, the first impression one receives 
 of the prairie is that of a vast sea of growing 
 vegetation!" 
 
 7 6
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 The Boy's eyes sparkled. This was the fanci- 
 ful Father Paul that he loved best of all. 
 
 "Some time we must go there, Father Paul. 
 "Is it not so?" 
 
 "Yes, Boy, some time!" 
 
 77
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 REBELLIOUS thoughts were flitting through 
 the brain of Paul Zalenska as he rode 
 forth the next morning, tender and 
 fanciful ones, too, as he watched the sun's kisses 
 fall on leaf and flower and tree, drying with 
 their soft, insistent warmth the tears left by the 
 dew of night, and wooing all Nature to awake 
 to look up with glorious smiles, for the world, 
 after all, is beautiful and full of love and 
 laughter. 
 
 Why should not Paul be happy? Was he not 
 twenty, and handsome, and rich, and popular, 
 and destined for great things? Was there a 
 want in the world that he could not easily have 
 satisfied, had he so desired? And was he not 
 officially betrothed to the Princess Elodie of 
 
 Austria 
 
 "Damn the Princess Elodie!" he thought, 
 
 79
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 with more emphasis than reverence, and he rode 
 along silently, slowly, a frown clouding his 
 fresh, boyish brow, face to face with the prose of 
 the existence he would fain have had all romance 
 and poetry. 
 
 It had all been arranged for him by well- 
 meaning minds minds that could never see 
 how the blessing they had intended to bestow 
 might by any chance become a curse. 
 
 The Boy came of age in February next Feb- 
 ruary nineteenth but it had been the strongly 
 expressed wish of his mother that his coronation 
 should not take place until May. 
 
 For was it not in May that she had met her 
 Paul? 
 
 She had felt, from the birth of the young 
 Prince, a presentiment of her own early death, 
 and had formed many plans and voiced many 
 preferences for his future. No one knew what 
 personal reasons the Imperatorskoye had for the 
 wish, but she had so definitely and unmistakably 
 made the desire known to all her councillors 
 that none dreamed of disobeying the mandate of 
 their deceased and ever-to-be-lamented Queen. 
 
 80
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Her slightest wish had always been to them an 
 unassailable law. 
 
 So the coronation ceremonies were to take 
 place in the May following the Prince's birthday, 
 and the Regent had arranged that the marriage 
 should also be celebrated at that time. Of 
 course, the Boy had acquiesced. He saw no rea- 
 son to put it off any longer. It was always best 
 to swallow your bitterest pill first, he thought, 
 and get the worst over and the taste out of your 
 mouth as soon as possible. 
 
 Until that eventful time, the Prince was free 
 to go where he pleased, and to do whatever he 
 wished. He had insisted upon this liberty, and 
 the Regent, finding him in all other respects so 
 amenable to his leading, gladly made the con- 
 cession. This left him a year that is, nearly a 
 year, for it was June now of care-free bachelor- 
 hood ; a year for one, who was yet only a dreamy 
 boy, to acquire the proper spirit for a happy 
 bridegroom; a year of Father Paul! 
 
 He rode along aimlessly for a short distance, 
 scarcely guiding his horse, and only responding 
 to the greetings of acquaintances he chanced to 
 
 81
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 meet with absent-minded, though still irreproach- 
 able, courtesy. He was hardly thinking at all, 
 now at least consciously. He was simply glad 
 to be alive, as Youth is glad in spite of any 
 possible, or impossible, environment. 
 
 Suddenly his eyes fell upon a feminine rider 
 some paces in advance, who seemed to attract 
 much attention, of which she was apparently 
 delightfully unconscious. Paul marked the 
 faultless proportions of her horse. 
 
 "What a magnificent animal!" he thought. 
 Then, under his breath, he added, "and what a 
 stunning rider!" 
 
 She was only a girl about eighteen or nine- 
 teen, he should judge by her figure and the girl- 
 ish poise of her small head but she certainly 
 knew how to ride. She sat her horse as though 
 a part of him, and controlled his every motion as 
 she would her own. 
 
 "Just that way might she manage a man," 
 Paul thought, and then laughed aloud at the 
 absurdity of the thought. For he had never 
 seen the girl before. 
 
 Paul admired a good horsewoman they are 
 
 82
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 so pitifully few. And he followed her, at a safe 
 distance, with an interest unaccountable, even 
 to him. Finally she drew rein before one of the 
 houses facing the Row, dismounted, and throw- 
 ing the train of her habit gracefully over her 
 arm, walked to the door with a brisk step. Paul 
 instantly likened her to a bird, so lightly trip- 
 ping over the walk that her feet scarcely seemed 
 to touch the ground. She was a wee thing 
 certainly not more than five foot tall and 
 petite, almost to an extreme. The Boy had ex- 
 pressed a preference, only a few days before, for 
 tall, magnificent women. Now he suddenly dis- 
 covered that the woman for a man to love 
 should by all means be short and small. He 
 wondered why it had never occurred to him in 
 that light before, and thought of Jacques' ques- 
 tion about Rosalind, "What stature is she of?" 
 and Orlando's reply, "As high as my heart!" 
 
 The girl who had aroused this train of 
 thought had reached the big stone steps by this 
 time, and suddenly turning to look over her 
 shoulder, just as he passed the gate, met his gaze 
 
 83
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 squarely. Gad! what eyes those were! full of 
 mystery and magnetism, and possibilities! 
 
 For an instant their eyes clung together in 
 that strange mingling of glances that sometimes 
 holds even utter strangers spellbound by its 
 compelling force. 
 
 Then she turned and entered the house, and 
 Paul rode on. 
 
 But that glance went with him. It tormented 
 him, troubled him, perplexed him. He felt a 
 mad desire to turn back, to follow her into that 
 house, and compel her to meet his eyes again. 
 Did she know the power of her own eyes? Did 
 she know a look like that had almost the force 
 of a caress? 
 
 He told himself that they were the most beau- 
 tiful eyes that he had ever seen and yet he 
 could not have told the color of them to save 
 his soul. He began to wonder about that. It 
 vexed him that he could not remember. 
 
 "Eyes!" he thought, "those are not eyes! 
 They are living magnets, drawing a fellow on 
 and on, and he never stops to think what color 
 they are nor care!"
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Aud then he pulled himself up sharply, and 
 declared himself a madman for raving on the 
 street in broad daylight over the mere acciden- 
 tal meeting with a pair of pretty eyes. He the 
 uncrowned king of a to-be-glorious throne ! He 
 the affianced husband of the Princess Elodie 
 of Hell ! He refused to think of it ! And again 
 the horse he rode and the Park trees heard a bit 
 of Paul Zalenska's English profanity that should 
 have made them hide in shame over the deprav- 
 ity of youth. 
 
 But the strangest thing of all was that the 
 Boy, for the nonce, was not thinking of nor 
 listening for the voice! 
 
 He turned as he reached the end of the Row 
 and rode slowly back. But the horses and 
 groom had already gone from the gate. And 
 inwardly cursing his slowness, he started on a 
 trot for Berkeley Square. 
 
 He was not very far from the Verdayne house, 
 when, turning a sudden corner, he came upon 
 the girl again, riding at a leisurely pace in the 
 opposite direction. Startled by his unexpected 
 appearance, she glanced back over her shoulder
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 as she passed, surprising him and perhaps her- 
 self, too, for girls do that sometimes by a ring- 
 ing and tantalizing laugh! 
 
 That laugh! Wonder upon wonders, it was 
 the voice! 
 
 It was she Opal! 
 
 He wheeled his horse sharply, but swift as he 
 was, she was yet swifter and was far down the 
 street before he was fairly started in pursuit. 
 His one desire of the moment was to catch and 
 conquer the sprite that tempted him. 
 
 Her veil fluttered out behind her on the 
 breeze, like a signal of no-surrender, and once 
 only once she looked back over her shoulder. 
 She was too far ahead for him to catch the glint 
 of her eye, but he heard the echo of that laugh 
 that voice and it spurred him on and on. 
 
 Suddenly, by some turn known only to her- 
 self, she eluded him and escaped beyond his 
 vision and beyond his reach. He halted his 
 panting horse at the crossing of several streets, 
 and swore again. But though he looked search- 
 ingly in every possible direction, there was no 
 trace of the fugitive to be seen. It was as 
 
 86
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 though the earth had opened and swallowed 
 horse and rider in one greedy gulp. 
 
 Baffled and more disappointed than he cared 
 to own, Paul rode slowly back to Berkeley 
 Square, his heart bounding with the excitement 
 of the chase and yet thoroughly vexed over his 
 failure, at himself, his horse, the girl. 
 
 At the house he found letters from the Re- 
 gent awaiting him, recalling to him his position 
 and its unwelcome responsibilities. One of them 
 enclosed a full-length photograph of his future 
 bride. 
 
 Fate had certainly been kind to him by grant- 
 ing his one expressed wish. The Princess Elodie 
 was what he had desired, "quite six-foot tall." 
 Yet he pushed the portrait aside with an impa- 
 tient gesture, and before his mental vision rose a 
 little figure tripping up the steps, with a back- 
 ward glance that still seemed to pierce his very 
 soul. 
 
 He was not thinking, as he certainly should 
 have been, of the Princess Elodie! And he had 
 not even noticed whether she had any eyes or 
 noU
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 He looked again at the picture of the Aus- 
 trian princess, lying face upward upon the pile 
 of letters. With disgust and loathing he swept 
 the offending portrait into a drawer, and sum- 
 moning Vasili, began to make a hasty toilet. 
 
 Vasili had never seen his young master in such 
 bad humor. He was unpardonably late for 
 luncheon, but that would not disturb him, surely 
 not to such an extent as this! 
 
 He was greatly disturbed by something. 
 There was no denying that. 
 
 He had found the voice, but
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 IT was the next morning at the breakfast table 
 that Paul Zalenska, listlessly looking over 
 the "Society Notes" in the Times, came 
 upon this significant notice : 
 
 "Mr. Gilbert Ledoux and daughter, Miss 
 Opal Ledoux, of New Orleans, accompanied 
 by Henri, Count de Roannes, of Paris, have 
 taken passage on the Lusitania, which sails 
 for New York on July 3rd." 
 
 It* was she, of course! who else could it be? 
 Surely there could not be more than one Opal in 
 America ! 
 
 "Father Paul, I notice that the Lusitania is to 
 sail for America on the third of July. Can't we 
 make it?" 
 
 Verdayne smiled quietly at the suddenness of
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 the proposal, but was not unduly surprised. He 
 remembered many unaccountable impulses of his 
 own when his life was young and his blood was 
 hot. He remembered too with a tender gratitude 
 how his father had humored him and was he not 
 "Father Paul"? 
 
 "I see no reason why not, Boy." 
 
 "You see, I have already lost a whole month 
 out of my one free year. I am unwilling to waste 
 a single hour of it, Father Paul wouldn't you 
 be ? And we must see America together, you and 
 I, before I go back to prison !" 
 
 "Certainly, Boy, certainly. My time is yours 
 when you want it, and where you want it, the 
 whole year through !" 
 
 "I know that, Father Paul, and I thank you !" 
 
 It was more difficult to arrange matters with 
 Lady Henrietta. She was not so young as she 
 once was and she still adored her son, as only the 
 mother of but one child can adore, and could not 
 bear the idea of having him away from her. Old 
 and steady as he had now become, he was still her 
 boy, the idol of her heart. Yet she felt, as her son 
 did, that the Boy was entitled to the few months 
 
 90
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 of liberty left him, and she did not greatly object, 
 though there was a wistful look in her eyes as 
 they rested on her son that told how keenly she 
 felt every separation from him. 
 
 As for Sir Charles, he had not lost the know- 
 ing twinkle of the eye. Moreover, he knew far 
 better than his wife how real was the claim their 
 young guest had upon their son. And he bade 
 them go with a hearty grasp of the hand and a 
 bluff Godspeed. 
 
 So it was settled that Verdayne and the Boy, 
 attended only by Vasili, were to sail for America 
 on the third of July, and passage was immediately 
 secured on the Lusitania. 
 
 On the morning of the day appointed, Paul 
 Zalenska from an upper deck watched the party 
 he had been awaiting, as they mounted the gang- 
 plank. 
 
 Gilbert Ledoux he scarcely noticed. The 
 Count de Roannes, too, interested him no longer 
 when, with a hasty glance, he had assured him-
 
 self that the Frenchman was as old as Ledoux 
 and not the gay young dandy in Opal's train that 
 he had feared to find him. 
 
 He had eyes alone for the girl, and he watched 
 her closely as she tripped up the gang-plank, cling- 
 ing to her father's arm and chattering gayly in 
 that voice he so well remembered. 
 
 She was not so small at close range as she had 
 appeared at a distance, but possessed an exquisite 
 roundness of figure and softness of outline well 
 in proportion to the shortness of her stature. 
 
 He had been proud of his kingship very proud 
 of his royal blood and his mission to his little king- 
 dom. But of late he had known some rebellious 
 thoughts, quite foreign to his mental habit. 
 
 And to-day, as he looked at Opal Ledoux, he 
 thought, "After all, how much of a real man can 
 I ever be? What am I but a petty pawn on the 
 chessboard of the world, moved hither and yon, to 
 gain or to lose, by the finger of Fate !" 
 
 As Opal Ledoux passed him, she met his glance, 
 and slightly flushed by the rencontre, looked back 
 over her shoulder at him and smiled ! And such
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 a smile ! She passed on, leaving him tingling in 
 every fibre with the thrill of it. 
 
 It was Fate. He had felt it from the very first, 
 and now he was sure of it. 
 
 How would it end ? How could it end ? 
 
 Paul Zalenska was very young oh, very 
 young, indeed 1
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE next day Verdayne and his young com- 
 panion were introduced to Mr. Ledoux 
 and his guest. 
 
 Gilbert Ledoux, a reserved man evidently de- 
 scended from generations of thinking people, was 
 apparently worried, for his face bore unmistakable 
 signs of some mental disturbance. Paul Zalenska 
 was struck by the haunted expression of what 
 must naturally have been a grave countenance. It 
 was not guilt, for he had not the face of a man 
 pursued by conscience, but it certainly was fear 
 a real fear. And Paul wondered. 
 
 As for the Count de Roannes, the Boy dis- 
 missed him at once as unworthy of further con- 
 sideration. He was brilliantly, even artificially 
 polished glaringly ultra- fashionable, ostenta- 
 tiously polite and suave. In the lines of his bestial 
 face he bore the records of a lifetime's profligacy 
 and the black tales of habitual self-indulgence. 
 
 95
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Paul hated him instinctively and wondered how a 
 man of Ledoux's unmistakable refinement could 
 tolerate him for a moment. 
 
 It was not until the middle of the following 
 afternoon that Opal Ledoux appeared on deck, 
 when her father, with an air of pride, mingled 
 with a certain curious element of timidity, pre- 
 sented to her in due form both the Englishman 
 and his friend. 
 
 The eyes of the two young people flashed a 
 recognition that the lips of each tacitly denied as 
 they responded conventionally to the introduction. 
 
 Paul noticed that the shadow of her father's 
 uneasiness was reflected upon her in a somewhat 
 lesser but all too evident degree. And again he 
 wondered. 
 
 A few moments of desultory conversation that 
 was of no interest to Paul and then the Count 
 proposed a game of ecarte, to which Verdayne and 
 Ledoux assented readily enough. 
 
 But not so our Boy ! 
 
 Ecarte! Bah! When did a boy of twenty 
 ever want to play cards within sound of the rustle 
 of a petticoat ? and such a petticoat ! 
 
 96
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 When the elderly gallant noted the attitude of 
 the young fellow he cast a quick glance of sus- 
 picion at Opal. He would have withdrawn his 
 proposal had he been able to find any plausible 
 excuse. But it was too late. And with an inward 
 invective on his own blundering, he followed the 
 other gentlemen to the smoking-room. 
 
 And Paul and Opal were at last face to face 
 and alone! 
 
 He turned as the sound of the retreating steps 
 died away and looked long and searchingly into 
 her face. If the girl intended to ignore their for- 
 mer meeting, he thought, he would at once put 
 that idea beyond all question. She bore his scru- 
 tiny with no apparent embarrassment. She was an 
 American girl, and as she would have expressed 
 it, she was "game !" 
 
 "Well ?" she said at last, questioningly. 
 
 "Yes," he responded, "well well, indeed, at 
 last!" 
 
 She bowed mockingly. 
 
 "And," he went on, "I have been searching for 
 you a long time, Opal !"
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 He had not intended to say that, but having said 
 it, he would not take it back. 
 
 Then she remembered that she had said that she 
 would call him "Paul" the first time she met him, 
 and she smiled. 
 
 "Searching for me? I don't understand." 
 
 "Of course not! Neither do I! Why should 
 we? The best things in life are the things we 
 don't and can't understand. Is it not so?" 
 
 "Perhaps !" doubtfully. She had never thought 
 of it in just that light before, but it might be true. 
 It was human nature to be attracted by mystery. 
 "But you have been looking for me, you say! 
 Since when? our race?" And her laugh rang 
 out on the air with its old mocking rhythm. 
 
 And the Boy felt his blood tingle again at the 
 memory of it. 
 
 "But what did you say, Monsieur Zalenska 
 pardon me Paul, I mean," and she laughed 
 again, "what did you say as you rode home 
 again ?" 
 
 The Boy shook his head with affected contri- 
 tion. 
 
 "Unfit to tell a lady!" he said.
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 And the girl laughed again, pleased by his 
 frankness. 
 
 "Vowed eternal vengeance upon my luckless 
 head, I suppose!" 
 
 "Oh, not so bad as that, I think," said Paul, 
 pretending to reflect upon the matter "I am sure 
 it was not quite so bad as that !" 
 
 "It would hardly have done, would it, to vow 
 what you were not at all sure you would ever be 
 able to fulfil ? Take my advice, and never bank a 
 sou upon the move of any woman !" 
 
 "You're not a woman," he laughed in her eyes ; 
 "you're just an abbreviation !" 
 
 But Opal was not one whit sensitive upon the 
 subject of her height. Not she ! 
 
 "Well, some abbreviations are more effective 
 than the words they stand for," she retorted. "I 
 shall cling to the flattering hope that such may 
 be my attraction to the reader whose 'only books 
 are woman's looks !' ' 
 
 "But why did you run away?" 
 
 "Just because!" Then, after a pause, "Why 
 did you follow ?" 
 
 99
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "I don't know, do you ? Just because, I sup- 
 pose!" 
 
 And then they both laughed again. 
 
 "But I know why you ran. You were afraid !" 
 said Paul. 
 
 Her eyes flashed and there was a fine scorn in 
 her tones. 
 
 "Afraid of what, pray?" 
 
 "Of being caught too easily! Come, now 
 weren't you ?" 
 
 "I wouldn't contradict you for the world, Paul." 
 
 She lingered over his name with a cadence in 
 her tone that made it almost a caress. It thrilled 
 him again as it had from the beginning. 
 
 "But I'll forgive you for running away from 
 me, since I am so fortunate as to be with you now 
 where you can't possibly run very far! Strange, 
 isn't it, how Fate has thrown us together ?" 
 
 "Very!" 
 
 There was a dry sarcasm in the tones, and a 
 mockery in the glance, that told him she was not 
 blind to his manoeuvres. Their eyes met and they 
 laughed again. Truly, life just then was exceed- 
 
 100
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 ingly pleasant for the two on the deck of the 
 Lusitania. 
 
 "But I was looking for you before that, Opal 
 long before that weeks !" 
 
 The girl was truly surprised now and turned to 
 him wonderingly. Then, without question, he 
 told her of his overhearing her at the garden party 
 what a long time ago it seemed ! and his de- 
 sire, ever since, to meet her. 
 
 He told her, too, of his hearing her laugh at 
 the theatre that night ; but the girl was silent, and 
 said not a word of having seen him there. Con- 
 fidences were all right for a man, she thought, but 
 a girl did well to keep some things to herself. 
 
 He did not say that he was deliberately follow- 
 ing her to America, but the girl had her own ideas 
 upon the subject and smiled to herself at the lively 
 development of affairs since that tiresome garden 
 party she had found so unbearable. Here was an 
 adventure after her own heart. 
 
 And yet Opal Ledoux had much on her mind 
 just then. The Boy had read the signs upon her 
 face correctly. She was troubled. 
 
 For a long time they sat together, and looking 
 
 JOI
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 far out over the vast expanse of dancing 1 blueness, 
 they spoke of life and the living of it. And 
 both knew so little of either! 
 
 It was a strange talk for the first one so subtly 
 intimate, with its flashes of personality and free- 
 dom from conventions, that it seemed like a meet- 
 ing of old friends, rather than of strangers. Some 
 intimacies are like the oak, long and steady of 
 growth ; others spring to full maturity in an hour's 
 time. And these two had bridged the space of 
 years in a few moments of converse. They under- 
 stood each other so well. 
 
 This same idea occurred to them simultaneous^ 
 ly, as she looked up at him with eyes glowing 
 with a quick appreciation of some well-expressed 
 and worthy ' thought. Something within him 
 stirred to sudden life something that no one else 
 had ever reached. 
 
 He looked into her eyes and thought he had 
 never looked into the eyes of a woman before. 
 She smiled and he was sure it was the first time 
 he had ever seen a woman smile ! 
 
 "I am wild to be at home again," she was say- 
 ing, "fairly crazy for America! How I love her 
 
 IO2
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 big, broad, majestic acres the splendid sweep ofr 
 her meadows the massive grandeur of her moun- 
 tain peaks the glory of her open skies! You 
 too, I believe, are a wanderer on strange seas. 
 You can hardly fail to understand my longing for 
 the homeland!" 
 
 "I do understand, Opal. I am on my first visit 
 to your country. Tell me of her her institutions, 
 her people ! Believe me, I am greatly interested !" 
 
 And he was in her! Nothing else counted at 
 that moment. But the girl did not understand 
 that then ! 
 
 For half an hour, perhaps, she lost herself in 
 an eloquent eulogy of America, while the Boy sat 
 and watched her, catching the import of but little 
 that she said, it must be confessed, but drinking 
 in every detail of her expressive countenance, her 
 flashing, lustrous eyes, her red, impulsive lips and 
 rounded form, and her white, slender hands, al- 
 ways employed in the expression of a thought or 
 as the outlet for some passing emotion. He caught 
 himself watching for the occasional glimpses of 
 her small white teeth between the rose of her lips. 
 He saw in her eyes the violet sparks of smoulder- 
 
 103
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 ing fires, kindled by the volcanic heart sometimes 
 throbbing and threatening so close to the surface. 
 When the eruption came! Fascinated he 
 watched the rise and sweep of her white arm. 
 Every line and curve of her body was full of sug- 
 gestion of the ardent and restless and impulsive 
 temperament with which nature had so lavishly 
 endowed her. She was alive with feeling alive 
 to the finger-tips with the joy of life, the fullness 
 of a deep, emotional nature. 
 
 It occurred to Paul that nature had purposely 
 left her body so small, albeit so beautifully 
 rounded, that it might devote all its powers to the 
 building therein of a magnificent, flaming soul 
 that her inner nature might always triumph. But 
 Opal had never been especially conscious of a soul 
 scarcely of a body. She had not yet found 
 herself. 
 
 Paul's emotions were in such chaotic rebellion 
 that the thunder of his heart-beats mingled with 
 the pulse hammering through his brain and made 
 him for the first time in his life curiously deaf to 
 his own thoughts. 
 
 As she met his eye, expressing more than he 
 
 104
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 realized of the storm within, her own fell with a 
 sudden sense of apprehension. She rose and 
 looked far out over the restless waves with a sud- 
 den flush on her dimpled cheek, a subtle excite- 
 ment in her rapid words. 
 
 "As for our men, Paul, they are only human 
 beings, but mighty with that strength of physique 
 and perfect development of mind that makes for 
 power. They are men of dauntless purpose. 
 They are men of pure thoughts and lofty ideals. 
 They know what they want and bend every ambi- 
 tion and energy to its attainment. Of course I 
 speak of the average American the type! The 
 normal American is a born fighter. Yes, that is 
 the key-note of American supremacy! We never 
 give up ! never ! In my country, what men want, 
 they get !" 
 
 She raised her hand in a quaint, expressive ges- 
 ture, and the loose sleeve fell back, leaving her 
 white arm bare. He sprang to his feet, his eyes 
 glowing. 
 
 "And in my country, what men want, they 
 take!" he responded fiercely almost bratally and 
 without a second's warning Paul threw his arms 
 
 105
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 about her and crashed her against his breast. He 
 pressed his lips mercilessly upon her own, holding 
 them in a kiss that seemed to Opal would never 
 end. 
 
 "How how dare you!" she gasped, when at 
 last she escaped his grasp and faced him in the 
 fury of outraged girlhood. "I I hate you !" 
 
 "Dare? When one loves one dares anything!" 
 was his husky response. "I shall have had my 
 kiss and you can never forget that! Never! 
 never !" 
 
 And Paul's voice grew exultant. 
 
 Opal had heard of the brutality, the barbarism 
 of passion, but her life had flowed along 
 conventional channels as peacefully as a quiet 
 river. She had longed to believe in the fury of 
 love in that irresistible attraction between men 
 and women. It appealed to her as it naturally 
 appeals to all women who are alive with the in- 
 tensity of life. But she had seen nothing of it. 
 
 Now she looked living Passion in the face for 
 the first time, and was appalled half frightened, 
 half fascinated by the revelation. That kiss 
 seemed to scorch her lips with a fire she had never 
 
 ( io6
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 dreamed of. With the universal instinct of shamed 
 womanhood, she pressed her handkerchief to her 
 lips, rubbing fiercely at the soiled spot. He di- 
 vined her thought and laughed, with a note of 
 exultation that stirred her Southern blood. 
 
 In defiance she raised her eyes and searched his 
 face, seeking some solution of the mystery of her 
 own heart's strange, rebellious throbbing. What 
 could it mean ? 
 
 Paul took another step toward her, his face soft- 
 ening to tenderness. 
 
 "What is it, Opal?" he breathed. 
 
 "I was trying to understand you." 
 
 "I don't understand myself sometimes cer- 
 tainly not to-day !" 
 
 "I thought you were a gentleman!" 
 
 (I wonder if Eve didn't say that to Adam in 
 the garden!) 
 
 "I have been accustomed to entertain that same 
 idea myself," he said, "but, after all, what is it to 
 be a gentleman ? All men can be gentle when they 
 get what they want. That's no test of gentility. 
 It takes circumstances outside the normal to prove 
 man's civilization. When his desires meet with 
 
 107
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 opposition the brute comes to the surface that's 
 all." 
 
 Another rush of passion lighted his eyes and 
 sought its reflection in hers. Opal turned and 
 fled. 
 
 In the seclusion of her stateroom Opal faced 
 herself resolutely. A sensation of outrage min- 
 gled with a strange sense of guilt. Her resent- 
 ment seemed to blend with something resembling 
 a strange, fierce joy. She tried to fight it down, 
 but it would not be conquered. 
 
 Why was he so handsome, so brilliant, this 
 strange foreign fellow whom she felt intuitively to 
 be more than he claimed to be? What was the 
 secret of his power that even in the face of this 
 open insult she could not be as angry as she knew 
 she should have been? 
 
 She looked in the mirror apprehensively. No, 
 there was no sign of that terrible kiss. And yet 
 she felt as though all the world must have seen had 
 they looked at her felt that she was branded for- 
 ever by the burning touch of his lips ! 
 
 108
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IT was not until the dinner hour on the follow- 
 ing day that Paul and Opal met again. One 
 does not require an excuse for keeping to 
 one's stateroom during an ocean voyage espe- 
 cially during the first few days and the girl, 
 though in excellent health and a capital sailor, kept 
 herself secluded. 
 
 She wanted to understand herself and to under- 
 stand this stranger who was yet no stranger. For 
 a girl who had looked upon life as she had she felt 
 woefully unsophisticated. But the Boy ? He was 
 certainly not a man of the world, who through 
 years of lurid experience had learned to look upon 
 all women as his legitimate quarry. If he had 
 been that sort, she told herself, she would have 
 been on her guard instinctively from the very first 
 But she knew he was too young for that far too 
 young and his eyes were frank and clear and 
 open, with no dark secrets behind their curtained 
 lids. But what was he and who? 
 
 109
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 When the day was far spent, she knew that shfi 
 was no nearer a solution than she had been at 
 dawn, so she resolved to join the group at table 
 and put behind her the futile labor of self-exam- 
 ination. She would not, of course, deign to show 
 any leniency toward the offender indeed not! 
 She would not vouchsafe one unnecessary word 
 for his edification. 
 
 But she took elaborate care with her toilet, se- 
 lected her most becoming gown and drove her 
 maid into a frenzy by her variations of taste and 
 temper. 
 
 It was truly a very bewitching Opal who finally 
 descended to the salon and joined the party of four 
 masculine incapables who had spent the day in 
 vain search for amusement. Paul Zalenska rose 
 hastily at her entrance and though she made many 
 attempts to avoid his gaze she was forced at last 
 to meet it. The electric spark of understanding 
 flashed from eye to eye, and both thrilled in an- 
 swer to its magnetic call. In the glance that 
 passed between them was lurking the memory of 
 a kiss. 
 
 IIO
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Opal blushed faintly. How dare he remember ! 
 Why, his very eyes echoed that triumphant laugh 
 she could not forget She stole another glance 
 at him. Perhaps she had misjudged him but 
 
 She turned to respond to the greeting of her 
 father and the other two gentlemen, and soon 
 found herself seated at the table opposite the Boy 
 she had so recently vowed to shun. Well, she 
 needn't talk to him, that was one consolation. 
 Yet she caught herself almost involuntarily listen- 
 ing for what he would say at this or that turn of 
 the conversation and paying strict though veiled 
 attention to his words. 
 
 It was a strange dinner. No one felt at ease. 
 The air was charged with something that all felt 
 too tangibly oppressive, yet none could define, save 
 the two who would not. 
 
 For Paul the evening was a dismal failure. Try 
 as he would, he could not catch Opal's eye again, 
 nor secure more than the most meagre replies 
 even to his direct questions. She was too French 
 
 ill
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 to be actually impolite, but she interposed between 
 them those barriers only a woman can raise. She 
 knew that Paul was mad for a word with her; 
 she knew that she was tormenting and tantalizing 
 him almost beyond endurance; she felt his impa- 
 tience in every nerve of her, with that mysterious 
 sixth sense some women are endowed with, and 
 she rejoiced in her power to make him suffer. He 
 deserved to suffer, she said. Perhaps he'd have 
 some idea of the proper respect due the next girl 
 he met! These foreigners! Mon Dieu! She'd 
 teach him that American girls were a little 'differ- 
 ent from the kind they had in his country, where 
 "what men want, they take," as he had said. 
 What kind of heathen was he ? 
 
 And she watched him surreptitiously from un- 
 der her long lashes with a curious gleam of satis- 
 faction in her eyes. She had always known she 
 had this power over men, but she had never cared 
 quite so much about using it before and had been 
 more annoyed than gratified by the effect her per- 
 sonality had had upon her masculine world. 
 
 So she smiled at the "Count, she laughed with 
 the Count and made eyes most shamelessly at the 
 
 112
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 disgusting- old gallant till something in his face 
 warned her that she had reached a point beyond 
 which even her audacity dared not go. 
 
 Heavens ! how the old monster would devour a 
 woman, she thought, with a thrill of disgust. 
 There were awful things in his face! 
 
 And the Boy glared at de Roannes with un- 
 speakable profanity in his eyes, while the girl 
 laughed to herself and enjoyed it all as girls do 
 enjoy that sort of thing. 
 
 It was delightful, this game of speaking eyes 
 and lips. 
 
 "Oh, the little more, and how much it is 1 
 And the little less, and what worlds away !" 
 
 But it was, as she could dimly see, a game that 
 might prove exceedingly dangerous to play, and the 
 Count had spoiled it all, anyway. And a curious 
 flutter in her heart, as she watched the Boy take 
 his punishment with as good grace as possible, 
 pled for his pardon until she finally desisted and 
 bade the little company good night. 
 
 At her departure the men took a turn at bridge,
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 but none of them seemed to care much for the 
 cards that night and the Boy soon broke away. 
 He was about to withdraw to his stateroom in 
 chagrin when quite unexpectedly he found Opal 
 standing by the rail, wrapped in a long cloak. 
 She was gazing far out toward the distant hori- 
 zon, the light of strange, puzzling thoughts in the 
 depths of her eyes. She did not notice him until 
 he stood by her side, when she turned and faced 
 him defiantly. 
 
 "Opal," he said, "there was one poet of life 
 and love whom we did not quote in our little dis- 
 cussion to-night. Do you remember Tennyson's 
 words, 
 
 " 'A man had given all earthly bliss 
 And all his worldly worth for this, 
 To waste his whole heart in one kiss 
 Upon her perfect lips?' 
 
 Let them plead for me the pardon I know no bet- 
 ter way to sue for or explain !" 
 
 The girl was silent. That little flutter in her 
 heart was pleading for him, but her head was 
 still rebellious, and she knew not which would 
 
 114
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 triumph. She put one white finger on her lip, and 
 wondered what to say to him. She would not 
 look into his eyes they bothered her quite be- 
 yond all reason so she looked at the deck in- 
 stead, as though hoping to find some rule of con- 
 duct there. 
 
 "I am sorry, Opal," went on the pleading tones, 
 "that is, sorry that it offended you. I can't be 
 sorry that I did it yet!" 
 
 After a moment of serious reflection, she looked 
 up at him sternly. 
 
 "It was a very rude thing to do, Paul! No 
 one ever " 
 
 "Don't you suppose I know that, Opal? Did 
 you think that I thought " 
 
 "How was I to know what you thought, Paul ? 
 You didn't know me !" 
 
 "Oh, but I do. Better than you know your- 
 self!" 
 
 She looked up at him quickly, a startled ex- 
 pression in her soft, lustrous eyes. 
 
 "I almost believe you do Paul." 
 
 "Opal!" He paused. She was tempting him 
 again. Didn't she know it?
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Opal, can't won't you believe in me? Don't 
 you feel that you know me?" 
 
 "I'm not sure that I do even yet after 
 that ! Oh, Paul, are you sure that you know your- 
 self?" 
 
 "No, not sure, but I'm beginning to!" 
 
 She made no reply. After a moment, he said 
 softly, "You haven't said that you forgive me, 
 yet, Opal! I know there is no plausible excuse 
 for me, but listen! I couldn't help it I truly 
 couldn't! You simply must forgive me!" 
 
 "Couldn't help it?" Oh, the scorn of her re- 
 ply. "If there had been any man in you at all, 
 you could have helped it !" 
 
 "No, Opal, you don't understand! It is be- 
 cause I am a man that I couldn't help it. It 
 doesn't strike you that way now, I know, but 
 some day you will see it !" 
 
 And suddenly she did see it. And she reached 
 out her hand to him, and whispered, "Then let's 
 forget all about it. I am willing to if you will !" 
 
 Forget ? He would not promise that. He did 
 not wish to forget! And she looked so pretty 
 and provoking as she said it, that he wanted to! 
 
 II*
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 But he only took her hand, and looked his grati- 
 tude into her eyes. 
 
 The Count de Roannes came unexpectedly and 
 unobserved upon the climax of the little scene, 
 and read into it more significance than it really 
 had. It was not strange, perhaps, that to him 
 this meeting should savour of clandestine rela- 
 tions and that he should impute to it false motives 
 and impulses. The Count prided himself upon 
 his tact, and was therefore very careful to use 
 the most idiomatic English in his conversation. 
 But at this sudden discovery for he had not im- 
 agined that the acquaintance had gone beyond 
 his own discernment he felt the English lan- 
 guage quite inadequate to the occasion, and mut- 
 tered something under his breath that sounded re- 
 markably like "Tison d'enfer!" as he turned on 
 his heel and made for his stateroom. 
 
 And the Boy, unconscious and indifferent to all 
 this by-play, had only time to press to his lips the 
 little hand she had surrendered to him before the 
 crowd was upon them. 
 
 But the waves were singing a Te Deum in his 
 ears, and the skies were bluer in the moonlight 
 
 117
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 than ever sea-skies were before. Paul felt, with 
 a thrill of joy, that he was looking far off into the 
 vaster spaces of life, with their broader, grander 
 possibilities. He felt that he was wiser, nobler, 
 stronger nearer his ideal of what a brave man 
 should be. 
 
 118
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WHEN two are young, and at sea, and in 
 love, and the world is beautiful and 
 bright, it is joyous and wonderful to 
 drift thoughtlessly with the tide, and rise and 
 fall with the waves. Thus Paul Zalenska and 
 Opal Ledoux spent that most delightful of voy- 
 ages on the Lusitania. They were not often 
 alone. They did not need to be. Their inti- 
 macy had at one bound reached that point when 
 every word and movement teemed with tender 
 significance and suggestion. Their first note 
 had reached such a high measure that all the 
 succeeding days followed at concert pitch. It 
 was a voyage of discovery. Each day brought 
 forth revelations of some new trait of character 
 each unfolding that particular something 
 which the other had always admired. 
 And so their intimacy grew. 
 
 119
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Paul Verdayne saw and smiled. He was glad 
 to see the Boy enjoying himself. He knew his 
 chances for that sort of thing were all too 
 pathetically few. 
 
 Mr. Ledoux looked on, troubled and per- 
 plexed, but he saw no chance, and indeed no 
 real reason, for interfering. 
 
 The Count de Roannes was irritated, at times 
 even provoked, but he kept his thoughts to him- 
 self, hiding his annoyance, and his secret explos- 
 ions of "Au diable!" beneath his usual urbanity. 
 
 There was nothing on the surface to indicate 
 more than the customary familiarity of young 
 people thrown together for a time, and yet no 
 one could fail to realize the undercurrent of emo- 
 tion below the gaiety of the daily ripple of 
 amusement and pleasurable excitement and 
 converse. 
 
 They read together, they exchanged experi- 
 ences of travel, they discussed literature, music, 
 art and the stage, with the enthusiastic parti- 
 sanship of zealous youth. They talked of life, 
 with its shade and shadow, its heights and 
 depths of meaning, and altogether became very 
 
 1 2O
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 well acquainted. Each day anew, they discov- 
 ered an unusual congeniality in thoughts and 
 opinions. They shared in a large measure the 
 same exalted outlook upon life the same lofty 
 ambitions and dreams. 
 
 And the more Paul learned of the character of 
 this strange girl, the more he felt that she was 
 the one woman in the world for him. To be 
 sure, he had known that, subconsciously, the 
 first time he had heard her voice. Now he knew 
 it by force of reason as well, and he cursed the 
 fate that denied him the right to declare himself 
 her lover and claim her before the world. 
 
 One thing that impressed Paul about the girl 
 was the generous charity with which she viewed 
 the frailties of human nature, her sincere 
 pity for all forms of human weakness and defeat, 
 her utter freedom from petty malice or spite. 
 Rail at life and its hypocrisies, as she often did. 
 she yet felt the tragedy in its pitiful short-com- 
 ings, and looked with the eye of real compassion 
 upon its sins and its sinners, condoning as far as 
 possible the fault she must have in her very 
 heart abhorred. 
 
 121
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "We all make mistakes," she would say, when 
 someone retailed a bit of scandal. "No human 
 being is perfect, nor within a thousand miles of 
 perfection. What right then have we to con- 
 demn any fellow-creature for his sins, when we 
 break just as important laws in some other di- 
 rection ? It's common hypocrisy to say, 'We never 
 could have done this terrible thing!' and draw 
 our mantle of self-righteousness closely about us 
 lest it become contaminated. Perhaps we 
 couldn't! Why? Because our temptations do 
 not happen to lie in that particular direction, 
 that's all! But we are all law-breakers; not one 
 keeps the Ten Commandments to the letter not 
 one! Attack us on our own weak point and see 
 how quickly we run up the flag of surrender 
 and perhaps the poor sinner we denounce for his 
 guilt would scorn just as bitterly to give in to 
 the weakness that gets the best of us. Sin is sin, 
 and one defect is as hideous as another. He 
 who breaks one part of the code of morality and 
 righteousness is as guilty just exactly as 
 guilty as he who breaks another. Isn't the 
 first commandment as binding as the other nine? 
 
 122
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 AncJ now many of us do not break that every 
 day we live?" 
 
 And there was the whole creed of Opal 
 Ledoux. 
 
 But as intimate as she and the Boy had be- 
 come, they yet knew comparatively little of each 
 other's lives. 
 
 Opal guessed that the Boy was of rank, and 
 bound to some definite course of action for 
 political reasons. This much she had gained 
 from odds and ends of conversation. But 
 beyond that, she had no idea who he was, 
 nor whence he came. She would not have been 
 a woman had she not been curious and as I 
 have said before, Opal Ledoux was, every inch 
 of her five feet, a woman but she never allowed 
 herself to wax inquisitive. 
 
 As for the Boy, he knew there was some evil 
 hovering with threatening wings over the sun- 
 shine of the girl's young life some shadow she 
 tried to forget, but could not put aside and he 
 grew to associate this shadow with the con- 
 tinued presence of the French Count, and his 
 intimate air of authority. Paul knew not why 
 
 123
 
 he should thus connect these two, but neverthe- 
 less the impression grew that in some way de 
 Roannes exercised a sinister influence over the 
 life of the girl he loved. 
 
 He hated the Count. He resented every 
 look that those dissolute eyes flashed at the girl, 
 and he noticed many. He saw Opal wince 
 sometimes, and then turn pale. Yet she did not 
 resent the offense. 
 
 But Paul did. 
 
 "Such a look from a man like that is the 
 grossest insult to any woman," he thought, 
 writhing in secret rage. "How can she permit 
 it? If she were my my sister, I'd shoot him if 
 he once dared to turn his damned eyes in her 
 direction !" 
 
 And thus matters stood throughout the brief 
 voyage. Paul and Opal, though conscious of 
 the double barrier between them, tried to forget 
 its existence for the moment, and, at intervals, 
 succeeded admirably. 
 
 For were they not in the spring-time of 
 youth, and in love? 
 
 And Paul Zalenska talked to this girl as he 
 
 124
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 had never talked to anyone before not even 
 Paul Verdayne! 
 
 She brought out the latent best in him. She 
 developed in him a quickness of perception, a 
 depth of thought and emotion, a facility of 
 speech which he had never known. She stimu- 
 lated every faculty, and gave him new incentive 
 a new and firmer resolve to aspire and fight 
 for all that he held dear. 
 
 "I always feel," he said to Opal, once, "as 
 though my soul stood always at attention, 
 awaiting the inevitable command of Fate! All 
 Nature seems to tell me at times that there is 
 a purpose in my living, a work for me to do, and 
 I feel so thoroughly alive so ready to listen to 
 the call of duty and to obey!" 
 
 "A dreamer!" she laughed, "as wild a dreamer 
 as I!" 
 
 "Why not?" he returned. "All great deeds 
 are born of dreams! It was a dreamer who 
 found this America you are so loyal to! And 
 who knows but that I too may find my wor l/ ' ? " 
 
 "And a fatalist, too!" 
 
 125
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Why, of course! Everyone is, to a greater 
 or a less extent, though most dare not admit it!" 
 
 "But yesterday you said what did you say, 
 Paul, about the power of the human will over 
 environment and fate?" 
 
 "I don't remember. That was yesterday. 
 I'm not the same to-day, at all. And to-morrow 
 I may be quite different." 
 
 "Behold the consistency of man. But Fate, 
 Paul what makes Fate? I have always been 
 taught to believe that the world is what we 
 make it!" 
 
 "And it is true, too, that in a way we may 
 make the world what we will, each creating it 
 anew for himself, after his own pattern but 
 after all, Opal, that is Fate. For what we are, 
 we put into these worlds of ours, and what we 
 are is what our ancestors have made us and 
 that is what I understand by destiny." 
 
 "Ah, Paul, you have so many noble theories 
 of life." 
 
 His boyish face grew troubled and perplexed. 
 
 "I thought I had, Opal till I knew you! 
 Now I do not know! Fate seems to have taken 
 
 ;. 
 
 26
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 a hand in the game and my theories are cast 
 aside like worthless cards. I begin to see more 
 clearly that we cannot always choose our 
 paths." 
 
 "Can one ever, Paul?" 
 
 "Perhaps not! Once I believed' implicitly in 
 the omnipotence of the human will to make life 
 just what one wished. Now" and he searched 
 her eyes "I know better." 
 
 "Unlucky Opal, to cross your path!" she 
 sighed. "Are you superstitious, Paul? Do you 
 know that opals bring bad luck to those who 
 come beneath the spell of their influence?" 
 
 "I'll risk the bad luck, Opal!" 
 
 And she smiled. 
 
 And he thought as he looked at her, how well 
 she understood him! What an inspiration 
 would her love have brought to such a life as he 
 meant his to be ! What a Recamier or du Barry 
 she would have made, with her piquwite, capti- 
 vating face, her dark, lustrous, compelling eyes, 
 her significant gestures, which despite many 
 wayward words and phrases, expressed only lofty 
 and majestic thoughts! Her whole regal little 
 
 127
 
 body, with its irresistible power and charm, was 
 so far beyond most women! She was life and 
 truth and ambition incarnate! She was the 
 spirit of dreams and the breath of idealism and 
 the very soul of love and longing. 
 
 Would she feel insulted, he wondered, had she 
 known he had dared to compare her, even in his 
 own thoughts, with a king's mistress? He 
 meant no insult far from it! But would 
 she have understood it had she known? 
 
 Paul fancied that she would. 
 
 "They may not have been moral, those 
 women," he thought, "that is, what the world 
 calls 'moral' in the present day, but they pos- 
 sessed power, marvellous power, over men and 
 kingdoms. Opal Ledoux was created to exert 
 power her very breath is full of force and 
 vitality!" 
 
 "Yes," he repeated aloud after due deliber- 
 ation, "I'll risk the bad luck if you'll be good 
 to me!" 
 
 "Am I not?" 
 
 "Not always." 
 
 "Well, I will be to-day. See! I have a new 
 
 128
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 book a sad little love-tale, they say just the 
 thing for two to read at sea," and with a height- 
 ened color she began to read. 
 
 She had pulled her deck-chair forward, until 
 she sat in a flood of sunshine, and the bright 
 rays, falling on her mass of rich brown hair, 
 heightened all the little glints of red-gold till they 
 looked like living bits of flame. Oh the vitality 
 of that hair! the intense glow of those eyes in 
 whose depths the flame-like glitter was reflected 
 as the voice, too, caught fire from the fervid 
 lines! 
 
 Soon the passion and charm of the poem cast 
 its spell over them both'as they followed the fate 
 of the unhappy lovers through the heart-ache of 
 their evanescent dream. 
 
 Their eyes met with a quick thrill of under- 
 standing. 
 
 ''It is Fate, again," Paul whispered. "Read 
 on, Opal!" 
 
 She read and again they looked, and again they 
 understood. 
 
 "1 cannot read any more of it," she faltered, a 
 real fear in her voice. "Let us put it away." 
 
 129
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "'No, no!" he pleaded. "It's true too true. 
 Read on, please, dear!" 
 
 "1 cannot, Paul. It is too sad!" 
 
 "Then let me read it, Opal, and you can 
 listen!" 
 
 And he took the book gently from her hand, 
 and read until the sun was smiling its farewell 
 to the laughing waters. 
 
 That evening- a strong wind was playing 
 havoc with the waves, and the fury of the mad- 
 dened spray was beating a fierce accompaniment 
 to their -hearts. 
 
 "How I love the wind," 'said Opal. "More 
 than all else in Nature I love it, I think, what- 
 ever its mood may be. I never knew why 
 probably because I, too, am capricious and full 
 of changing moods. If it is tender and caress- 
 ing, I respond to its appeal; if it is boisterous 
 and wild, I grow reckless and rash in sympathy ; 
 and when it is fierce and passionate, I feel my 
 blood rush within me. I am certainly a child of 
 the wind!" 
 
 130
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Let us hope you will never experience a 
 cyclone," said the Count, drily. "It might be 
 disastrous!" 
 
 "True, it might," said Opal, and she did not 
 smile. "I echo your kind hope, Count de 
 Roannes." 
 
 And the Boy looked, and listened, and loved !
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 As they left the dinner-table, Opal passed 
 the Boy on her way to her stateroom, 
 and laying her hand upon his arm, 
 looked up into his face appeaiingly. He won- 
 dered how any man could resist her. 
 
 "Let's put the book away, Paul, and never 
 look at it again!" 
 
 "Will you be good to me if I do?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 She considered a moment. "How?" she 
 asked, finally. 
 
 "Come out for just a few moments under the 
 stars, and say good-night." 
 
 "The idea! I can say good-night here and 
 now!" She hesitated. 
 
 "Please, Opal! I seldom see you alone 
 really alone and this is our last night, you 
 know. To-morrow we shall part perhaps for- 
 
 133
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 ever who knows? Can you be so cruel as to 
 refuse this one request. Please come!" 
 
 His eyes were wooing, her heart fluttering in 
 response. 
 
 "Well perhaps!" she said. 
 
 "Perhaps?" he echoed, with a smile, then 
 added, teasingly, "Are you afraid?" 
 
 "Afraid? I dare anything to-night!" 
 
 "Then come!" 
 
 "I will if I feel like this when the time 
 comes. But," and she gave him a tantalizing 
 glance from under her long lashes, "don't 
 expect me!" 
 
 Paul tried to look disappointed, but he felt 
 sure that she would come. 
 
 And she did! But not till he had given up 
 all hope, and was pacing the deck in an agony of 
 impatience. He had felt so certain that he knew 
 his beloved! She came, swiftly, silently, almost 
 before he was aware. 
 
 "Well, . . . I'm here," she said. 
 
 "I see you are, Opal and thank you." 
 
 He extended his hand, but she clasped hers 
 
 134
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 behind her back and looked at him defiantly. 
 Truly she was in a most perverse mood! 
 
 "Aren't we haughty!" he laughed. 
 
 "No, I'm not; I am angry!" 
 
 "With me?" 
 
 "No! not you." 
 
 "Whom, then?" 
 
 "With myself!" And she stamped her tiny 
 foot imperiously. 
 
 Paul was delighted. "Poor child," he said. 
 "What have you done that you are so sorry?" 
 
 "I'm not sorry! That's why I'm angry! If I 
 were only a bit sorry, I'd have some self- 
 respect!" 
 
 Paul looked at her deliberately, taking in 
 everj- little detail of her appearance, his eyes full 
 of admiration. Then he added, with an air of 
 finality, "But / respect you !" 
 
 She softened, and laid her hand on his arm. 
 Paul instantly took possession of it. 
 
 "Do you really?" she asked, searching his face, 
 almost wistfully. "A girl who will do ... 
 what I am doing to-night !" 
 
 "But what are you doing, Opal ?" he asked in 
 
 135
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 the most innocent surprise. "Merely keeping a 
 wakeful man company beneath the stars!" 
 
 "Is that . . . all?" 
 
 "All . . . now!" 
 
 They stood silently for a minute, hand still in 
 hand, looking far out over the moonlit waters, 
 each conscious of the trend of the other's 
 thoughts the beating of the other's heart. The 
 deck was deserted by all save their two selves 
 they two alone in the big starlit universe. At 
 last she spoke. 
 
 "This is interesting, isn't it?" 
 
 "Of course! holding your hand!" 
 
 She snatched it from 'him. "I forgot you had 
 it," she said. 
 
 "Forget again!" 
 
 "No, I won't! ... Is it always interesting? 
 . . . holding a girl's hand?" 
 
 "It depends upon the girl, I suppose! I was 
 enjoying it immensely just then." 
 
 He took her hand again. 
 
 And again that perilously sweet silence fell 
 between them. 
 
 At last, "Promise me, Paul!" she said. 
 
 136
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "I will what is it?" 
 
 "Promise me to forget anything I may say or 
 do to-night. . . . not to think hard of me, how- 
 ever rashly I may act! I'm not accountable, 
 really! I'm liable to say . . . anything! I feel 
 it in my blood!" 
 
 "I understand, Opal! See! the winds are bois- 
 terous and unruly enough. You may be as rash 
 and reckless as you will!" 
 
 Suddenly the wind blew her against his 
 breast. The perfume of her hair, and all the 
 delicious nearness of her, intoxicated him. He 
 laughed a soft, caressing little lover-laugh, and 
 raising her face to his, kissed her lips easily, nat- 
 urally, as though he had the right. She strug- 
 gled, helplessly, as he held her closely to him, and 
 would not let her go. 
 
 "You are a " She bit her lip, and choked 
 
 back the offensive word. 
 
 "A what? Say it, Opal!" 
 
 "A a brute! There ! let me go !" 
 
 But he only held her closer and laughed again 
 softly, till she whispered, "I didn't quite 
 mean that, you know !" 
 
 137
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Of course you didn't!" 
 
 She drew away from him and pointed her fin- 
 ger at him accusingly, her eyes full of reproof. 
 
 "But you said you wouldn't! You prom- 
 ised!" 
 
 "Wouldn't what?" 
 
 "Wouldn't do what you did again!" 
 
 "Did I?" insinuatingly. 
 
 "How dare you ask that? You " 
 
 " 'Brute' again? Quite like old married 
 folk!" 
 
 "Old married folk? They never kiss!" 
 
 "Don't they?" 
 
 "Not each other! . . . other people's hus- 
 bands or wives!" 
 
 "Is that it?" 
 
 "Surely 
 
 'Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, 
 He would have written sonnets all his life?* 
 
 O no! not he!" 
 
 "I'm learning many new things, Opal! Let's 
 olay we're married, then to someone else!" 
 
 '38
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "But haven't you any conscience at all?" 
 
 "Conscience? what a question! Of course 
 I havel" 
 
 "You certainly aren't using it to-night!" 
 
 "I'm too busy! Kiss me!" 
 
 "The very idea!" 
 
 "Please!" 
 
 "Certainly not!" 
 
 "Then let me kiss you!" 
 
 "No!!!" 
 
 "Why not? Don't you like to be loved?" 
 
 And his arms closed around her, and his lips 
 found hers again, and held them. 
 
 At last, "Silly Boy!" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Oh! to make such a terrible fuss about some- 
 thing he doesn't really want, and will be sorry he 
 has after he gets it!" 
 
 And Paul asked her wickedly, what foolish 
 boy she was talking about now ? He knew what 
 he really wanted always and was not sorry 
 when he had it. Not he! He was sorry only for 
 the good things he had let slip, never for those 
 he had taken! 
 
 139
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "But do let me go, Paul! I don't belong 
 to you!" 
 
 "Yes you do for a little while!" He held 
 her close. 
 
 Belong to him! How she thrilled at the 
 thought! Was this what it meant to be loved? 
 And did she belong to him if only, as he said, 
 for a little while? She certainly didn't belong 
 to herself! Whatever this madness that had 
 suddenly taken possession of her, it was stronger 
 than herself. She couldn't control it she 
 didn't even want to! At all events, she was 
 living to-night! Her blood was rushing madly 
 through her body. She was deliciously, 
 thoroughly alive! 
 
 "Paul! are you listening?" 
 
 "Yes, dear!" the answer strangely muffled. 
 
 And then she purred in his ear, all the time 
 caressing his cheek with her small white fingers: 
 "You see, Paul, I knew I had made some sort 
 of impression upon you. I must have done 
 so or you wouldn't have done that! But any 
 girl can make an impression on shipboard, and 
 an affair at sea is always so evanescent, that no 
 
 140
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 expects it to last more than a week. I don't 
 want to make such a transitory impression upon 
 you, Paul. I wanted you to remember me 
 longer. I wanted oh, I wanted to give you 
 something to remember that was just a little bit 
 different than other girls had given you some 
 distinct impression that must linger with you 
 always always! I'm not like other women! 
 Do you see, Paul? It was all sheer vanity. I 
 wanted you to remember!" 
 
 "And did you think I could forget?" 
 
 "Of course! All men forget a kiss as soon as 
 their lips cease tingling!" 
 
 Paul laughed. "Wise girl! Who taught you 
 so much? Come, confess!" 
 
 "Oh, I've known you a whole week, Paul, 
 and you " 
 
 But their lips met again and the sentence was 
 never finished. 
 
 At last she put her hands on each side of his 
 face and looked up into his eyes. 
 
 "Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Paul?" 
 
 "Of course not!" 
 
 "Of course you are!" 
 
 141
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "You misunderstood me! I said 'Nof! But 
 why? Are you ashamed of me?" 
 
 "I ought to be, oughtn't I? But I don't be- 
 lieve you can help it!" 
 
 His lips crushed hers again, fiercely. "I can't, 
 Opal I can't!" 
 
 She turned away her head, but he buried his 
 face in her neck, kissing the soft flesh again and 
 again. 
 
 "Such a slip of a girl !" Paul murmured in her 
 ear, when he again found his voice. "Such a 
 tiny, little girl! I am almost afraid you will 
 vanish if I don't hold you tight !" 
 
 Opal was thoroughly aroused now no longer 
 merely passive quite satisfactorily responsive. 
 
 "I won't, Paul! I won't! But hold me closer, 
 closer! Crush this -terrible ache out of my heart 
 if you can, Paul !" 
 
 "There were tears in her voice. He clasped 
 her to him and felt her heart throbbing out its 
 pain against its own, as he whispered, "Opal, am 
 I a brute?" 
 
 "N-o-o-o-o!" A pause. At last, "Let me go 
 now, Paul! This is sheer insanity!" 
 
 142
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 But he made no move to release her until she 
 looked up into his eyes in an agony erf appeal, 
 and pleaded, "Please, Paul!" 
 
 "Are you sure you want to go?" 
 
 "No, I'm not sure of that, but I'm quite sure 
 that I ought to go ! I must ! I must !" 
 
 And Paul released her. Where was this mad- 
 ness carrying them? Was he acting the part of 
 the man he meant to be, or of a cad an unprin- 
 cipled bounder? He did not know. He only 
 knew he wanted to kiss her kiss' her . . . 
 
 She turned on him in a sudden flash of indig- 
 nation. "Why have you such power over me?" 
 she -demanded. 
 
 "What power over you, Opal!" 
 
 "What's the use of dodging the truth, you 
 professor of honesty? You make me do things 
 we both know I'll be sorry for all the rest of my 
 life. Why do you do it?" 
 
 Her eyes blazed with a real anger that made 
 her piqitante face more alluring than ever to the 
 eyes of the infatuated Boy who watched her. 
 He was righting desperately for self-control, but
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 if she should look at him as she had looked 
 sometimes ! 
 
 "I can't understand it!" she exclaimed. "I 
 always knew I was capable of being foolish 
 wicked, perhaps for a grande passion. I could 
 forgive myself that, I think! But for a mere 
 caprice a penchant like this! Oh, Paul! what 
 can you think of me?" 
 
 His voice was hoarse heavy with emotion. 
 
 "Think of you, Opal? I am sure you must 
 know what I think. I've never had an oppor- 
 tunity to tell you in so many words but you 
 must have seen what I have certainly taken no 
 pains to conceal. Shall I try to tell you, Opal?" 
 
 "No, no! I don't want to hear a word not, 
 a word! Do you understand? I forbid you!" 
 
 Paul bowed deferentially. She laughed ner- 
 vously at the humility in his obeisance. 
 
 "Don't be ridiculous!" she commanded. 
 "This is growing too melodramatic, and I hate 
 a scene. But, really, Paul, you mustn't simply 
 mustn't! There are reasons conditions and 
 you must not tell me, and I must not, will not 
 listen!" 
 
 144
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "I mustn't make love to you, you mean?" 
 
 "Imean . . . just that!" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Never mind the 'why.' There are plenty of 
 good and sufficient reasons that I might give if 
 I chose, but I don't choose! The only reason 
 that you need to know is that I forbid you!" 
 
 She turned away with that regal air of hers 
 that made one forget her child-like stature. 
 
 "Are you going, Opal?" 
 
 "Yes! what did I come out here for? I can't 
 remember. Do you know?" 
 
 "To wish me good-night, of course! And 
 you haven't done it!" 
 
 She looked back over her shoulder, a mocking 
 laugh in those inscrutable eyes. Then she 
 turned and held out both hands to him. 
 
 "Good-night, Paul, good-night! . . . You 
 seem able to do as you please with me, in spite of 
 everything and I just want to stay in your 
 arms forever forever ..." 
 
 Paul caught her to him, and their lips melted 
 in a clinging kiss. 
 
 At last she drew away from his embrace. 
 
 '45
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "The glitter of the moonlight and the music 
 of the wind-maddened waves must have gone to 
 my brain!" She laughed merrily, pulled his face 
 down to hers for a last swift kiss, and ran from 
 him before he could detain her. 
 
 The next morning they met for a brief mo- 
 ment alone. 
 
 Opal shook hands with the Boy in her most 
 perfunctory manner. 
 
 Paul, after a moment's silent contemplation 
 of her troubled face, bent over her, saying, 
 "Have I offended you, Opal? Are you angry 
 with me?" 
 
 She opened her eyes wide and asked with the 
 utmost innocence "For what?" 
 
 Paul was disconcerted. "Last night !" he said 
 faintly. 
 
 She colored, painfully. 
 
 "No, Paul, listen! I don't blame you a bit! 
 not a bit! A man would be a downright fool 
 not to take what he wanted But if you 
 
 146
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 want to be iriends with me, you'll just forget 
 all about last night or at any rate, ignore it, 
 and never refer to it again." 
 
 He extended his hand, and she placed hers in 
 it for the briefest possible instant. 
 
 And then their tete-a-tete was interrupted, 
 and they sat down for their last breakfast at sea. 
 
 Opal Ledoux was not visible again until the 
 Lusitania docked in New York, when she waved 
 her companion de voyage a smiling but none the 
 less reluctant an revoir! 
 
 But Paul was too far away to see the tears in 
 her eyes, and only remembered the smile.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 NEW YORK'S majestic greatness and cease- 
 less, tireless activity speedily engrossed 
 the Boy and opened his eager eyes to a 
 wider horizon than he had yet known. There 
 was a new influence in the whir and hum of this 
 metropolis of the Western world that set the 
 wheels of thought to a more rapid motion, and 
 keyed his soul to its highest tension. 
 
 It was not until his first letter from the home- 
 land had come across the waters that he paused 
 to wonder what the new factor in his life meant 
 for his future. He had not allowed his reason to 
 assert itself until the force of circumstances de- 
 manded that he look his soul in the face, and 
 learn whither he was drifting. Paul was no 
 coward, but he quailed before the ominous 
 clouds that threatened the happiness of himself 
 and the girl he loved. 
 
 149
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 For now he knew that he loved Opal Ledoux. 
 It was Fate. He had guessed it at the first 
 sound of her voice; he had felt it at the first 
 glance of her eye; and he had known it beyond 
 the peradventure of a doubt at the first touch 
 of her lips. 
 
 Yet this letter from his kingdom was full of 
 suggestions of duties to be done, of responsibili- 
 ties to be assumed, of good still to be brought 
 out of much that was petty and low, and of help- 
 less, miserable human beings who were so soon 
 to be dependent upon him. 
 
 "I will make my people happy," he thought. 
 "Happiness is the birthright of every man be 
 he peasant or monarch." And then the thought 
 came to him, how could he ever succeed in mak- 
 ing them truly happy, when he himself had so 
 sorely missed the way! There was only one 
 thing to do, he knew that both for Opal's sake 
 and for his own and that was to go far away, 
 and never see the face again that had bewitched 
 him so. 
 
 Perhaps, if he did this, he might forget the 
 experience that was, after all, only an episode in 
 
 150
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 a man's life and other men forget! He might 
 learn to be calmly happy and contented with his 
 Princess. It was only natural for a young man 
 to make love to a pretty girl, he thought, and 
 why should he be any exception? He had taken 
 the good the gods provided, as any live man 
 would now he could go his way, as other men 
 did, and forget ! Why not ? And yet the mere 
 thought of it cast such a gloom over his spirits 
 that he knew in his heart his philosophic at- 
 tempt to deceive himself was futile and vain. He 
 might run away, of course though it was 
 hardly like him to do that but he would 
 scarcely be able to forget. 
 
 And then Verdayne joined him with an open 
 note in his hand a formal invitation from Gil- 
 bert Ledoux for them to dine with him in his 
 Fifth Avenue house on the following evening. 
 He wished his family to meet the friends who 
 had so pleasantly attracted himself and his 
 daughter on shipboard. 
 
 Was it strange how speedily the Boy's resolu- 
 tions vanished? Run away! Not he!
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Accept the invitation, Father Paul, by all 
 means!" 
 
 It was a cordial party in which Paul Verdayne 
 and his young companion found themselves on 
 the following evening a simple family gather- 
 ing, graciously presided over by Opal's step- 
 mother. 
 
 Gilbert Ledoux's wife was one of those fash- 
 ion-plate women who strike one as too artificial 
 to be considered as more than half human. You 
 wonder if they have also a false set of emotions 
 to replace those they wore out in their youth 
 c'est a dire if they ever had any ! Paul smiled at 
 the thought that Mr. Ledoux need have no anx- 
 iety over the virtue of his second wife what- 
 ever merry dance the first might have led him ! 
 
 Opal was not present when the gentlemen 
 were announced, and the bevy of aunts and 
 uncles and cousins were expressing much impa- 
 tience for her presence which Paul Zalenska 
 echoed fervently in his heart. It was truly 
 pleasant this warm blood-interest of kinship. 
 
 152
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 He liked the American clannishness, and he 
 sighed to think of the utter lack of family affec- 
 tion in his own life. 
 
 The drawing-room, where they were received, 
 was furnished in good taste, the Boy thought. 
 The French touch was very prominent the 
 blend of color seemed to speak to him of Opal. 
 Yes, he liked the room. The effect grew on one 
 with the charm of the real home atmosphere 
 that a dwelling place should have. But he 
 wasn't so much interested in that, after all! In 
 fact, it was rather unsatisfactory without 
 Opal ! These people were her people and, of 
 course, of more than ordinary interest to him 
 on her account, but still 
 
 And at last, when the Boy was beginning to 
 acknowledge himself slightly bored, and to re- 
 sent the familiar footing on which he could see 
 the Count de Roannes already stood in the fam- 
 ily circle, Opal entered, and the gloomy, weari- 
 some atmosphere seemed suddenly flooded with 
 sunlight. 
 
 She came in from the street, unconventionally 
 removing her hat and gloves as she entered. 
 
 153
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Where have you been so long, Opal?" asked 
 Mrs. Ledoux, with considerable anxiety. 
 
 "At the Colony Club, ma mere I read a 
 paper!" 
 
 "Mon Dieu!" put in the Count, in an amused 
 tone. ''On what subject?" 
 
 "On The Modern Ethical Viewpoint,' 
 Comte," she answered, nodding her little head 
 sagely. "It was very convincing! In fact, I 
 exploded a bomb in the camp that will give 
 them all something sensational to talk about till 
 till the next scandal!" 
 
 The Count gave a low chuckle of apprecia- 
 tion, while Mr. Ledoux asked, seriously, "But 
 to what purpose, daughter?" 
 
 "Why, papa, don't you know? I had to teach 
 Mrs. Stuyvesant Moore, Mrs. Sanford Wyckoff, 
 and several other old ladies how to be good!" 
 
 And in the general laugh that followed, she 
 added, under her breath, "Oh, the irony of life!" 
 
 Paul watched her in a fever of boyish jealousy 
 as she passed through the family circle, bestow- 
 ing her kisses left and right with impartial favor. 
 She made the rounds slowly, conscientiously, 
 
 154
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 and then, with an air of supreme indifference, 
 moved to the Boy's side. 
 
 He leaned over her. 
 
 "Where are my kisses?" he asked softly. 
 
 She clasped her hands behind her back, child- 
 fashion, and looked up at him, a coquettish dar- 
 ing in her eyes. 
 
 "Where did you put them last?" she 
 demanded. 
 
 "You ought to know!" 
 
 "True I ought. But, as a matter of fact, I 
 haven't the slightest idea. It depends alto- 
 gether upon what girl you saw last." 
 
 "If you think that of me " 
 
 "What else can I think? Our first meeting 
 did not leave much room for conjecture. And, 
 of course " 
 
 "Opal! You have just time to dress for din- 
 ner! And the Count is very anxious to see the 
 new orchid, you know!" 
 
 There was a suggestion of reproof in Mrs. 
 Ledoux's voice. The girl's face clouded as she 
 turned away in response to the summons. But 
 she threw the Boy a challenge over her shoulder 
 
 155
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 a hint of that mischief that always seemed to 
 lurk in the corner of her eye. 
 
 Paul bit his lip. He was not a boy to be 
 played with, as Opal Ledoux would find out. 
 And he sulked in a corner, refusing to be con- 
 ciliated, until at last she re-entered the room, 
 leaning on the Count's "venerable" arm. She 
 had doubtless been showing him the orchid. 
 Humph ! What did that old reprobate know or 
 care about orchids ? 
 
 "A primrose by the river's brim, 
 A yellow primrose was to him, 
 And nothing more." 
 
 As the evening passed, there came to the Boy 
 no further opportunity to speak to Opal alone. 
 She not only avoided him herself, but the entire 
 party seemed to have entered into a conspiracy 
 to keep him from her. It roused all the fight in 
 his Slavic blood, and he determined not to be 
 outwitted by any such high-handed proceeding. 
 He crossed the room and boldly broke into the 
 conversation of the group in which she stood. 
 
 156
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Miss Ledoux/' he said, "pardon me, but as 
 we are about to leave, I must remind you of 
 your promise to show me the new orchid. I am 
 very fond of orchids. May I not see it now?" 
 
 Opal had made no such promise, but as she 
 looked up at him with an instinctive denial, she 
 met his eyes with an expression in their depths 
 she dared not battle. There was no knowing 
 what this impetuous Boy might say or do, if 
 goaded too far. 
 
 "Please pardon my forgetfulness," she said, 
 with a propitiating smile, as she took his arm. 
 "We will go and see it." 
 
 And the Boy smiled. He had not found his 
 opportunity he had made one! 
 
 With a malicious smile on his thin, wicked 
 lips the Count de Roannes watched them as 
 they moved across the room toward the con- 
 servatory this pair so finely matched that all 
 must needs admire. 
 
 It was rather amusing in les enfants, he told 
 Ledoux, this "Paul et Virginie" episode. Some- 
 what bourgeois, of course but harmless, he 
 hoped. This with an expressive sneer. But 
 
 157
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 mon Dieu! and there was a sinister gleam in 
 his evil eyes it mustn't go too far! The girl 
 
 was a captivating little witch the old father 
 winced at the significance in the tone and she 
 must have her fling! He rather admired her the 
 more for her diablerie but she must be careful ! 
 
 But he need not have feared to-night. Paul 
 Zalenska's triumph was short-lived. When once 
 inside the conservatory, the girl turned and 
 faced him, indignantly. 
 
 "What an utterly shameless thing to do!" she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "Why?" he demanded. "You were not treat- 
 ing me with due respect and 'self-preservation is 
 the first law of nature,' you know. I am so little 
 accustomed to being snubbed, that I don't 
 take it a bit kindly!" 
 
 "I did not snub you," she said, "at least, not 
 intentionally. But of course my friends have 
 prior claims on my time and attention. I can't 
 put them aside for a mere stranger." 
 
 "A stranger?" he echoed. "Then you 
 mean " 
 
 "I mean what?"
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "To ignore our former acquaintance alto- 
 gether?" 
 
 "I do mean just that ! One has many desper- 
 ate flirtations on board ship, but one isn't in any 
 way bound to remember them. It is not always 
 convenient. You may have foolishly remem- 
 bered. I have forgotten!" 
 
 "You have not forgotten. I say you have 
 not, Opal." 
 
 "We use surnames in society, . Monsieur 
 Zalenska?" 
 
 "Opal!" appealingly. 
 
 "Why such emotion, Monsieur?" mockingly. 
 
 The Boy was taken aback for a moment, but 
 he met her eyes bravely. 
 
 "Why ? Because I love you, Opal, and in your 
 heart you know it!" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Why do I love you? Because I can't help 
 it! Who knows, really, why anything happens 
 or does not happen in this topsy-turvy world?" 
 
 The girl looked at him steadily for a moment, 
 and then spoke indifferently, almost lightly. 
 
 "Have you looked at the orchid you wished 
 
 159
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 so much to see, Monsieur Zalenska? Mamma 
 is very proud of it!" 
 
 "Opal!" 
 
 But she went on, heedless of his interruption, 
 "Because, if you haven't, you must look at it 
 hastily you have wasted some time quite fool- 
 ishly already and I have promised to join the 
 Count in a few moments, and " 
 
 "Very well. I understand, Opal!" Paul stif- 
 fened. "I will relieve you of my presence. But 
 don't think you will always escape so easily be- 
 cause I yield now. You have not meant all you 
 have said to me to-night, and I know it as well 
 as you do. You have tried to play with 
 me " ' 
 
 "I beg your pardon!" 
 
 "You knew the tiger was in my blood you 
 couldn't help but know it! and yet you delib- 
 erately awakened him!" She gave him a startled 
 glance, her eyes appealing for mercy, but he 
 went on relentlessly. "Yes, after the manner of 
 women since the world began, you lured him on 
 and on ! Is it my fault or yours if he devour 
 us both?" 
 
 1 60
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Paul Verdayne, strangely restless and ill at 
 ease, was passing beneath the window and thus 
 became an involuntary listener to these mad 
 words from the lips of his young friend. 
 
 Straightway there rose to his mental vision a 
 picture never very far removed a picture of a 
 luxurious room in a distant Swiss hotel, the 
 foremost figure in which was the slender form of 
 a royally fascinating woman, reclining with 
 reckless abandon upon a magnificent tiger skin, 
 stretched before the fire. He saw her lavishing 
 her caresses upon the inanimate head. He heard 
 her purr once more in the vibrant, appealing 
 tones so like the Boy's. 
 
 The stately Englishman passed his hand over 
 his eyes to shut out the maddening vision, with 
 its ever-fresh pangs of poignant anguish, its per- 
 sistent, unconquered and unconquerable despair! 
 
 "God help the Boy!" he prayed, as he strolled 
 on into the solitude of the moonlit night. "No 
 one else can! It is the call of the blood the 
 relentless lure of his heritage! From it there is 
 no escape, as against it there is no appeal. It 
 is the mad blood of youth, quickened and inten- 
 
 161
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 sified in the flame of inherited desire. I cannot 
 save him!" 
 
 And then, with a sudden flood of tender, pas- 
 sionate, sacred memories, he added in his heart, 
 
 "And I would not, if I could 1" 
 
 162
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 PAUL VERDAYNE had many acquaintances 
 and friends in New York, and much 
 against their inclination he and the Boy 
 soon found themselves absorbed in the whirl of 
 frivolities. They were not very favorably im- 
 pressed. It was all too extravagant for their 
 Old World tastes not too magnificent, for 
 they both loved splendor but it shouted its 
 cost too loudly in their ears, and grated on their 
 nerves and shocked their aesthetic sense. 
 
 The Boy was a favorite everywhere, even more 
 so, perhaps, than in London. American society 
 saw no mystery about him, and would not have 
 cared if it had. If his face seemed somewhat 
 familiar, as it often had to Opal Ledoux. no one 
 puzzled his brains over it or searched the mag- 
 azines to place it. New York accepted him, as 
 it accepts all distinguished foreigners who have 
 
 163
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 no craving for the limelight of publicity, for his 
 face value, and enjoyed "him thoroughly. 
 Women petted him, because he was so witty and 
 chivalrous and entertaining, and always as ex- 
 quisitely well-groomed as any belle among 
 them; men were attracted to him because he had 
 ideas and knew how to express them. He was 
 worth talking to and worth listening to. He 
 had formed opinions of his own upon most sub- 
 jects. He had thought for himself and had the 
 courage of his convictions, and Americans like 
 that. 
 
 Naturally enough, before many days, at a 
 fashionable ball at the Plaza he came into con- 
 tact with Opal Ledoux again. 
 
 It was a new experience, this, to see the girl 
 he loved surrounded by the admiration and at- 
 tention of other men. In his own infatuation he 
 had not realized that most men would be 
 affected by her as he was, would experience the 
 same maddening impulses the same longing 
 the same thirst for possession of her. Now the 
 fact came home to him with the force of an elec- 
 tric shock. He could not endure the burning 
 
 164
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 glances of admiration that he saw constantly 
 directed toward her. What right had other men 
 to devour her with their eyes ? 
 
 He hastened to meet her. She greeted him po- 
 litely but coldly, expressing some perfunctory re- 
 gret when he asked for a dance, and showing him 
 that her card was already filled. And then her 
 partner claimed her, and she went away on his 
 arm, smiling up into his face in a way she had 
 that drove men wild for her. "The wicked little 
 witch!" Paul thought. "Would she make eyes 
 at every man like that? Dare she?" 
 
 A moment after, he heard her name, and in- 
 stantly was all attention. The two men just 
 behind him were discussing her rather freely 
 far too freely for the time and the place and 
 the girl, in Paul's estimation. He listened 
 eagerly. 
 
 "Bold little devil, that Ledoux girl!" said one. 
 "God! how she is playing her little game to- 
 night! They say she is going to marry that old 
 French Count, de Roannes! That's the fellow 
 over there, watching her with the cat's eyes. I 
 guess he thinks she means to have her fling first 
 
 165
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 and I guess she thinks so too! As usual, it's 
 the spectator who sees the best of the game. 
 What a curious girl she is a living paradox!" 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
 "Spanish, you know. Ought to have black 
 hair instead of red black eyes instead of well, 
 chestnut about expresses the color of hers. I 
 call them witch's eyes, they're so full of fire and 
 the devil!" 
 
 "She's French, too, isn't she? That accounts 
 for the eyes. The beaute du diable, hers is! 
 Couldn't she make a heaven for a man if she 
 would or a hell?" 
 
 "Yes, it's in her! She's doomed, you know! 
 Her grandmothers before her were bad women 
 regular witches, they say, with a good, big 
 streak of yellow. Couldn't keep their heads on 
 their shoulders couldn't be faithful to any one 
 man. Don't know as they tried!" 
 
 "I'll bet they made it interesting for the fellow 
 while it did last, anyway! But this one will 
 never be happy. She has a tragedy in her face, 
 if ever a woman had. But she's a man's woman, 
 all right, and she'd make life worth living if a 
 
 166
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 fellow had any red blood in him. She's one of 
 those women who are born for nothing else in 
 the world but to love, and be loved. Can't you 
 shoot the Count?" 
 
 "The Count ! Hell ! He won't be considered 
 at all after a little! She'll find plenty of men 
 glad to wake the devil in her just to keep her 
 from yawning! But she's not very tractable 
 even now, though her sins all lie ahead of her! 
 She's altogether too cool on the surface for her 
 make-up, but well, full of suggestion, and one 
 feels a volcano surging and steaming just below 
 the mask she wears, and has an insane desire to 
 wake it up! That kind of woman simply can't 
 help it." 
 
 A third voice broke in on the conversation 
 an older voice the voice of a man who had 
 lived and observed much. 
 
 "I saw her often as a child," he said, "a peril- 
 ously wilful child, determined upon her own 
 way, and possessed of her own fancies about 
 this, that, and the other, which were seldom, if 
 ever, the ideas of anyone else. There was always 
 plenty of excitement where she was always 
 
 167
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 that same disturbing air! Even with her pig- 
 tails and pinafores, one could see the woman in 
 her eyes. But she was a provoking little crea- 
 ture, always dreaming of impossible romances. 
 Her father had his hands full." 
 
 "As her husband will have, poor devil! If he's 
 man enough to hold her, all right. If he is not," 
 with a significant shrug of the shoulders, "it's 
 his own lookout!" 
 
 "That old French roue hold her? You're 
 dreaming! She won't be faithful to him a week 
 if he has a handsome valet, or a half-way manly 
 groom! How could she?" And they laughed 
 coarsely. 
 
 The Boy gave them a look that should have 
 annihilated all three, but they weren't noticing 
 the Boy. He could have throttled them! How 
 dared such lips as these pollute his darling's 
 name! And yet these were society men they 
 could dance with her, clasp her to them, and 
 look into those "witch eyes" oh, the ignominy 
 of it! 
 
 He looked across at Opal. How beautiful she 
 was in her pale green gown, her white shoulders 
 
 1 68
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 and arms glistening beneath the electric light 
 with the sheen of polished marble, her red- 
 brown hair glowing with its fiery lure, while 
 even across the room her eyes sparkled like dia- 
 monds, lighting up her whole face. She was 
 certainly enjoying herself this Circe who had 
 tempted him across the seas. She seemed pos- 
 sessed of the very spirit of mischief and Paul 
 forgot himself. 
 
 The orchestra was playing a Strauss waltz it 
 fired his blood. He walked across the room 
 with his masterful, authoritative air the man- 
 ner of a man born to command. "Miss 
 Ledoux," he said, and the crowd around her 
 instinctively made way for him, "this is our 
 waltz, I believe!" and whirled her away before 
 she could answer. 
 
 Ah! it was delicious, that waltz! In perfect 
 rhythm they clung together, gliding about the 
 polished floor, her bare shoulder pressing his 
 arm, her head with its bewildering perfume so 
 near his lips, their hearts throbbing fiercely in 
 the ecstasy of their nearness which was Love. 
 
 Oh to go on forever ! forever ! 
 
 169
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 The sweet cadence of the music died away, 
 and they looked into each other's eyes, startled. 
 
 "You seem to be acquiring the habit," she 
 pouted, but her lips quivered, and in response he 
 whispered in her ear, "Whose waltz was it, 
 sweetheart?" 
 
 "I don't know, Paul nor care!" 
 
 That was enough. 
 
 They left the room together. 
 
 170
 
 IN a secluded corner adjoining the ballroom, 
 Paul and Opal stood hand in hand, con- 
 scious only of being together, while their 
 two hearts beat a tumultuous acknowledgment 
 of that world-old power whose name, in what- 
 ever guise it comes to us, is Love! 
 
 "I said I wouldn't, Paul!" at last she said. 
 
 "Wouldn't what?" 
 
 "See you again like this!" 
 
 Paul smiled tenderly. 
 
 "My darling," he whispered, "what enchant- 
 ment have you cast over me that all my resolu- 
 tions to give you up fade away at the first 
 glimpse of your face? I resolve to be brave and 
 remember my duty until I see you and then I 
 forget everything but you I want nothing but 
 you!" 
 
 "What do you want with me, Paul?" 
 
 171
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Opal!" he cried impetuously. "After seeing 
 these gay Lotharios making eyes at you all the 
 evening, can you ask me that? I want to take 
 you away and hide you from every other man's 
 sight that's what I want! It drives me crazy 
 to see them look at you that way! But you 
 have such a way of keeping a fellow at arm's 
 length when you want to," he went on, ruefully, 
 "in spite of the magic call of your whole tempt- 
 ing personality. You know 'Die Walkure' don't 
 you? but of course you do. If I believed in the 
 theory of reincarnation, I should feel sure that 
 you were Briinhilde herself, surrounded by the 
 wall of fire!" 
 
 "I wish I were! I wish every woman had 
 some such infallible way of proving every man 
 who seeks her !" 
 
 "You have, Opal! You have your own 
 womanly instincts every woman's impassable 
 wall of fire, if she will only hide behind them. 
 You could never love unworthily!" 
 
 "But, Paul, don't you know? Haven't they 
 told you? I shall probably marry the Count 
 de Roannes !" 
 
 172
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Paul was astounded. 
 
 "Opal! No! No! Not that, surely not that! 
 I heard it, yes a moment ago. But I could not 
 believe it. The idea was too horrible. It could 
 not be true! 
 
 "But it is true, Paul! It is all too true!" 
 
 "It is a crime," he fairly groaned. 
 
 She shrank from him. "Don't say that, 
 Paul!" 
 
 "But you know it is true! Opal, just think! 
 If you give your sweet self to him and that is 
 all you can give him, as you and I know if you 
 give yourself to him, I say, I I shall go mad!" 
 
 "Yet women have loved him," she began, 
 bravely, attempting to defend herself. "Women 
 some kinds of women really love him now. 
 He has a power of compelling love even 
 yet!" 
 
 "And such women," Paul cried hoarsely, "are 
 more to be honored than you if you consent to 
 become his property with no love in your heart! 
 Don't plead extenuating circumstances. There 
 can be no extenuating circumstances vi all the 
 world for such a thing." 
 
 173
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 She winced as though he had struck her, for 
 she knew in her heart that what he said was 
 true, brutally true. The Boy was only voicing 
 her own sentiments the theory to which she 
 had always so firmly clung. 
 
 As Paul paused, a sudden realization of his 
 own future overwhelmed him and locked his 
 lips. He smiled sadly. Who was he that he 
 should talk like that? Was not he, too, plead- 
 ing extenuating circumstances? True, he was a 
 man and she was a woman, and the world has 
 two distinct standards but no less than she 
 he was selling himself for gain. 
 
 "Paul, Paul! I'm afraid you don't under- 
 stand! It isn't money. Surely you don't think 
 that! It isn't money it is honor honor, do 
 you hear? My dead mother's honor, and my 
 father's breaking heart !" 
 
 The secret was out, at last. This, then, was 
 the shadow that had cast its gloom over the 
 family ever since he had come in contact with 
 them. It was even worse than he had thought. 
 That she the lovely Opal should have to sac- 
 rifice her own honor to save her mother's! 
 
 174
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Honor! honor! how many crimes are com- 
 mitted in thy name! 
 
 "Tell me about it," he said sympathetically. 
 
 And she told him, sparing herself details, as 
 far as possible, of the storm of scandal about to 
 burst upon the family a storm from which only 
 the sacrifice of herself could save the family 
 name of Ledoux, and her mother's memory. It 
 might, or might not, be tit:;-, but the Count de 
 Roannes claimed to be able and ready to 
 bring proof. And, if it were true, she was not a 
 Ledoux at all, and her father was not her father 
 at all, except in name. No breath of il 1 -*ame 
 had ever reached her mother's naiu^ before. 
 They had thought she 'had happily escaped the 
 curse of her mother before her. But the Count 
 claimed to know, and well, he wanted her 
 Opal and, of course, it was possible, and of 
 course he would do anything to protect the 
 good name of his wife, if Opal became his wife, 
 and 
 
 "So, you see, Paul in the end, I shall have 
 to submit !" 
 
 175
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 She had not told it at all well, she thought, 
 but Paul little cared how the story was told. 
 
 "I do not see it that way at all, Opal. It 
 seems to me well, diabolical, and may God 
 help you, dear girl, when you, with your high- 
 keyed sensitive nature, first wake to the infamy 
 of it! I have no right to interfere no right at 
 all. Not even my love for you, which is stronger 
 than myself, gives me that right. For I am 
 betrothed! I tell you this because I see where 
 my folly has led us. There is only one thing to 
 do. We must part and at once. I am sorry" 
 then he thought of that first meeting on 
 board the liner, "no, I am not sorry we met! I 
 shall never be that! But I am going to be a 
 man. I am going to do my duty. Help me, 
 Opal help me!" 
 
 It was the old appeal of the man to the help- 
 meet God had created for him, and the woman 
 in her responded. 
 
 "Paul, I will!" and her little fingers closed 
 over his. 
 
 "Of course he loves you in his way, 
 but " 
 
 176
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Don't, Paul, don't! He has never once pre- 
 tended that he has been too wise." 
 
 "He will break your spirit, dear it's his na- 
 ture. And then he will break your heart!" 
 
 She raised her head, defiantly. 
 
 "Break my spirit, Paul? He could not. And 
 as for my heart that will never be his to 
 break!" 
 
 Their eyes met with the old understanding 
 that needs no words. Then she pointed to the 
 heavens. 
 
 "See the stars, Paul, smiling down so calmly. 
 How can they when hearts are aching? When 
 I was a child, I loved the stars. I fancied, too, 
 that they loved me, and I would run out under 
 their watchful eyes, singing for very joy, sure 
 they were guiding my life and that some day I 
 would be happy, gloriously happy. Somehow, 
 Paul, I always expected to be happy always! 
 till now! Now the stars seem to mock me. I 
 must have been born under a baleful conjunc- 
 tion, I guess. Oh, I told you, Paul, that Opals 
 were unlucky. I warned you didn't I warn 
 
 177
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 you? I may have tempted you, too, but I 
 didn't mean to do it!" 
 
 "Bless your dear heart, girl, you weren't to 
 blame!" 
 
 "But you said that night about the 
 tiger " 
 
 "Forgive me, Opal, I was not myself. I was 
 excited. I didn't mean that." 
 
 After a moment, she said, musingly, 
 
 "It is just as I said, Paul. I was born to go 
 to the devil, so it is well well for you, I mean 
 and perhaps for me that you and I cannot 
 marry." He shook his head, but she went on, 
 unheeding. "Paul, if I am destined to be a dis- 
 grace to someone and they say I am I'd 
 rather bring reproach upon his name than on 
 yours!" 
 
 "But why marry at all, if you feel like that? 
 Why, it's it's damnable!" 
 
 "Don't you see, Paul, I am foreordained to 
 evil marked a bad woman from the cradle! 
 Marriage is the only salvation, you know, for 
 girls with my inheritance. It's the sanctuary 
 
 178
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 that keeps a woman good and 'happy ever 
 after.' " 
 
 "It would be more apt, in my opinion, to 
 drive one to forbidden wine! A marriage like 
 that, I mean for one like you." 
 
 "But at least a married woman has a name 
 whatever she may do. She's protected. She 
 isn't " 
 
 But Paul would hear no more. 
 
 "Opal, we were made for each other from the 
 beginning surely we were. Some imp has 
 slipped into the scheme of things somewhere 
 and turned it upside down." 
 
 He paused. She looked up searchingly into 
 his eyes. 
 
 "Paul, do you love me?" 
 
 "Yes, dearest!" 
 
 "Are you sure?" 
 
 "As sure as I am of my own existence ! With 
 all my heart, Opal with all my soul!" 
 
 "Then we mustn't see each other any more!" 
 
 "Not any more. You are right, Opal, not any 
 more!" 
 
 "But what shall we do, Paul? We shall be 
 
 179
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 sure to meet often. You expect to stay the 
 summer through, do you not? And we are not 
 going to New Orleans for several weeks yet 
 and then?" 
 
 "We are going West, Father Paul and I out 
 on the prairies to rough it for a while. We were 
 going before long, anyway, and a few weeks 
 sooner or later won't make any difference. And 
 then home, back over the sea again, to face 
 life, to work, to try to be strong, I suppose." 
 
 Paul paused and looked at her passionately. 
 
 "Why are you so alluring to-night, Opal?" 
 
 Her whole body quivered, caught fire from 
 the flame in his eyes. What was there about 
 this man that made her always so conscious she 
 was a woman ? Why could she never be calm in 
 his presence, but was always so fated to 
 feel, feel, feel! 
 
 Her voice trembled as she looked up at him 
 and answered, 
 
 "Am I wicked, Paul? I wanted to be happy 
 to-night just for to-night ! I wanted to forget 
 the fate that was staring me so relentlessly in 
 the face. But I couldn't, Paul!"
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Then she glanced through the Curtains into 
 the ballroom and shuddered. 
 
 "The Count is looking for me," she said. The 
 Boy winced, and she went on rapidly, excitedly. 
 "We must part. As well now as any time, I sup- 
 pose, since it has to be. But first, Paul, let me 
 say it once just once / love you!" 
 
 He snatched her to him God! that any one 
 else should ever have the right! 
 
 "And I worship you, Opal! Even that 
 seems a weak word, to-night. But you under- 
 stand, don't you? I didn't know at sea whether 
 it was love or what it was that had seized me 
 as nothing ever had before. But I know now! 
 And listen, Opal this isn't a vow, nor anything 
 of that kind but I feel that I want to say it. 
 I shall always love you just this way always 
 I feel it, I know it! as long as I live! Will you 
 remember, darling? remember everything?" 
 
 "Yes yes ! And you, Paul ?" 
 
 "Till death!" And his lips held hers, regard- 
 less of ten thousand Counts and their claims 
 upon her caresses. 
 
 And they clung together again in the anguish 
 
 181
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 of parting that comes at some time or another 
 into the lives of all who know love. 
 
 Then like mourners walking away from the 
 graves of their loved ones, they returned to the 
 ballroom, with the dull ache of buried happiness 
 in their hearts. 
 
 182
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 OUT far out in the great American West, 
 the Boy wandered. And Paul Verdayne, 
 understanding as only he could under- 
 stand, felt how little use his companionship and 
 sympathy really were at this crisis of the Boy's- 
 life. 
 
 All through the month of August they trav- 
 elled, the Boy looking upon the land he had been 
 so eager to see with eyes that saw nothing but his 
 own disappointment, and the barrenness of his 
 future. The hot sun beat down upon the shade- 
 less prairies with the intensity of a living flame. 
 But it seemed as nothing to the heat of his own 
 passion his own fiery rebellion against the de- 
 cree of destiny altogether powerless against the 
 withering despair that had choked all the aspira- 
 tions and ambitions which, his whole life long, he 
 had cultivated and nourished in the soil of his 
 developing soul. 
 
 He thought again and again of the glories so 
 near at hand the glories that had for years been 
 
 "83
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 the goal of his ambition. He pictured the pageant 
 to come the glitter of armor and liveries, the 
 splendor and sparkle of jewels and lights, and 
 all the dazzling gorgeousness of royal equipments 
 the throngs of courtiers and beautiful women 
 bowing before him, proud of the privilege of do- 
 ing him homage him, a mere boy yet the king 
 the absolute monarch of his little realm, and su- 
 preme in his undisputed sway over the hearts of 
 his people his people who had worshipped his 
 beautiful mother and, if only for her sake, made 
 an idol of her son. He saw himself crowned by 
 loving hands with the golden circlet he loved and 
 reverenced, and meant to redeem from the stigma 
 of a worthless father's abuse and desecration ; he 
 saw his own young hands, strong, pure, and un- 
 defiled by any form of bribery or political cor- 
 ruption, wielding the sceptre that should please 
 God! bring everlasting honor and fame to the 
 little principality. He saw all this, and yet it 
 did not thrill him any more ! It was all Dead Sea 
 fruit, dust and ashes in his hand. He wanted 
 but one thing now and his whole kingdom did 
 not weigh one pennyweight against it. 
 
 184
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 But in spite of his preoccupation the freedom 
 and massiveness of the West broadened the Boy's 
 mental vision. He absorbed the spirit of the big 
 world it typified, and he saw things more clearly 
 than in the crowded city. And yet he suffered 
 more, too. He could not often talk about his sor- 
 row and his loss, but he felt all the time the un- 
 spoken sympathy in Verdayne's companionship, 
 and was grateful for the completeness of the un- 
 derstanding between them. 
 
 Once, far out in a wide expanse of sparsely set- 
 tled land, the two came upon a hut a little rough 
 shanty with a sod roof, and probably but two tiny 
 rooms at most. It was nearing evening, and the 
 red rays of the setting sun fell upon a young 
 woman, humbly clad, sitting on a bench at the 
 doorway, and cuddling upon her knee a lit- 
 tle baby dressed in coarse, but spotlessly white 
 garments. A whistle sounded on the still air, and 
 through the waving grain strode a stalwart man, 
 an eager, expectant light in his bronzed face. The 
 girl sprang to meet him with an inarticulate cry 
 of joy, and wife and baby were soon clasped close 
 to his breast. 
 
 185
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Paul could not bear it. He turned away with 
 a sob in his throat and looked into Verdayne's 
 eyes with such an expression of utter hopelessness 
 that the older man felt his own eyes moisten with 
 the fervor of his sympathy. That poor, humble 
 ranchman possessed something that was denied 
 the Boy, prince of the blood though he was. 
 
 And the two men talked of commonplace sub- 
 jects that night in subdued tones that were close 
 to tears. Both hearts were aching with the con- 
 sciousness of unutterable and irreparable loss. 
 
 Through the long nights that followed, out 
 there in the primitive, Paul thought of the hid- 
 eousness of life as he saw it now, with a loathing 
 that time seemed only to increase. He pictured 
 Opal his love as the wife of that old French 
 libertine, till his soul revolted at the very thought. 
 Such a thing was beyond belief. 
 
 Once he said to Verdayne, thinking of the con- 
 versation he had had with Opal on the night of 
 the ball at the Plaza, 
 
 "Father Paul, who was Lord Hubert Aldring- 
 
 186
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 ham ? The name sounds so familiar to me yet I 
 can't recall where I heard it." 
 
 "Why, he was my uncle, Boy, my mother's 
 brother. A handsome, wicked, devil-may-care 
 sort of fellow to whom nothing was sacred. You 
 must have heard us speak of him at home, for 
 mother was very fond of him." 
 
 "And you, Father Paul?" 
 
 "I detested him, Boy !" 
 
 And then the Boy told him something that 
 Opal had said to him of the possibility nay, the 
 probability of Lord Hubert's being her own 
 grandfather. Verdayne was pained grieved to 
 the heart at the terrible significance of this if 
 it were true. And there was little reason, alas, to 
 doubt it! How closely their lives were woven 
 together Paul's and Opal's! How merciless 
 seemed the demands of destiny! 
 
 What a juggler of souls Fate was ! 
 
 And the month of August passed away. And 
 September found the two men still wandering in 
 an aimless fashion about the prairie country, and 
 
 is/
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 yet with no desire for change. The Boy was 
 growing more and more dissatisfied, less and less 
 resigned to the decrees of destiny. 
 
 At last, one dull, gray, moonless night, when 
 neither could woo coveted sleep to his tired eyes, 
 the Boy said to his companion, "Father Paul, I'm 
 going to be a man a man, do you hear? I am 
 going to New Orleans you know Mr. Ledoux 
 asked us to come in September and I'm going 
 to marry Opal, whatever the consequences ! I will 
 not be bound to a piece of flesh I abhor, for the 
 sake of a mere kingdom not for the sake of a 
 world ! I will not sell my manhood ! I will not 
 sacrifice myself, nor allow the girl I love to be- 
 come a burnt-offering for a mother's sin. I will 
 not ! Do you remember away off there," and he 
 pointed off to the south of them, "the little shack, 
 and the man and the woman and the baby? 
 Father Paul, I want that! And I'm going to 
 have it, too ! Do you blame me ?" 
 
 And Verdayne threw his arm around the Boy's 
 neck, and said, "Blame you? No, Boy, no! And 
 may God bless and speed you !" 
 
 And the next day they started for the South. 
 
 188
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 IT was early in the morning, a few days later, 
 when Paul Verdayne and his young friend 
 reached New Orleans. Immediately after 
 breakfast he would have presented himself be- 
 fore had he dared the Boy called at the home 
 of the Ledouxs. Verdayne had important letters 
 to write, as he informed the Boy with a signifi- 
 cant smile, and begged to be allowed to remain be- 
 hind. 
 
 And the impatient youth, blessing him mentally 
 for his tact, set forth alone. 
 
 The residence that he sought was one of the 
 most picturesque and beautiful of the many state- 
 ly old mansions of the city. It was enclosed by a 
 high wall that hid from the passers-by all but the 
 most tantalizing glimpses of a fragrant, green 
 tropical garden, and gave an air of exclusiveness 
 to the habitation of this proud old family. As 
 
 189
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 the Boy passed through the heavy iron gate, and 
 his eye gazed in appreciation upon the tints of 
 foliage no autumn chills had affected, and the 
 glints of sun and shadow that only heightened 
 the splendor of blossom, and shrub, and vine, 
 which were pouring their incense upon the air, 
 he felt that he was indeed entering the Garden 
 of Eden the Garden of Eden with no French 
 serpents to tempt from him the woman that had 
 been created his helpmeet. 
 
 He found Opal, and a tall, handsome young 
 man in clerical vestments, sitting together upon 
 the broad vine-shaded veranda. The girl greeted 
 him cordially and introduced him to the priest, 
 Father Whitman. 
 
 At first Paul dared not trust himself to look 
 at Opal too closely, and he did not notice that her 
 face grew ashen at his approach. She had recov- 
 ered her usual self-possession when he finally 
 looked at her, and now the only apparent sign 
 of unusual agitation was a slight flush upon her 
 cheek an excited sparkle in her eye which 
 might have been the effect of many causes. 
 
 He watched the priest curiously. How noble- 
 
 190
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 looking he was ! He felt sure that he would have 
 liked him in any other garb. What did his pres- 
 ence here portend? 
 
 Paul had supposed that Opal was a Catho- 
 lic ; indeed had been but little concerned what she 
 professed. She had never appeared to him to be 
 specially religious, but, if she was, that absurd 
 idea of self-sacrifice for a dead mother she had 
 never known might appeal to the love of penance 
 which is inherent in all of Catholic faith, and 
 she might not surrender to her great love for 
 him. 
 
 The priest rose. 
 
 "Must you go, Father ?" asked Opal. 
 
 "Yes ! . . . I will call to-morrow, then ?" 
 
 "Yes to-morrow ! And" she suddenly threw 
 herself upon her knees at his feet "your bless- 
 ing, Father,'" she begged. 
 
 The priest laid a hand upon her head, and 
 raised his eyes to Heaven. Then, making the 
 sign of the cross upon her forehead, he took her 
 hands in his, and gently raised her to her feet. 
 She clung to his hands imploringly. 
 
 "Absolution, Father," she pleaded. 
 
 191
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 He hesitated, his face quivering with emotion, 
 his eyes lustrous with- tears, a world of feeling in 
 every line of his countenance. 
 
 "Child," he said hoarsely, "child ! Don't tempt 
 me!" 
 
 "But you must say it, you know, or what will 
 happen to me?" 
 
 The priest still hesitated, but her eyes would 
 not release him till he whispered, "Absolvo te, 
 my daughter, and God bless you !" 
 
 And releasing her hands, he bowed formally 
 to Paul and hurried down the broad stone steps 
 and through the gate. 
 
 Opal watched him, a smile, half-remorseful and 
 half-triumphant, upon her face. 
 
 "What does it all mean ?" asked Paul as he laid 
 his hand upon her arm. 
 
 She laughed nervously. "Oh nothing ! Only 
 when I see one of those long, clerical cassocks, 
 I am immediately seized with an insane desire 
 to find the man inside the priest !" 
 
 "Laudable, certainly! And you always suc- 
 ceed, I suppose?" 
 
 "Yes, usually ! why not ?" And she laughed 
 
 IQ2
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 again. "Don't, Paul! I don't want to quarrei 
 with you!" 
 
 "We won't quarrel, Opal," he said. But the 
 thought of the priest annoyed him. 
 
 He seated himself beside her. "Have you no 
 welcome for me?" he said. 
 
 She looked up at him, her eyes sweetly tender. 
 
 "Of course, Paul! I'm very glad to see you 
 again if you are a bad boy!" 
 
 He looked at her in amazement. "I, bad? 
 No," he said. And they laughed again. But it 
 was not the care-free laughter they had known at 
 sea. There was a strained note in the tones of 
 the girl that grated strangely upon the Boy's sen- 
 sitive ear. What had happened? he wondered. 
 What was the new barrier between them? Was 
 it the priest? Again the thought of the priest 
 worried him. 
 
 "Where is my friend, the Count de Roannes?" 
 he ventured at last. 
 
 "He sailed for Paris last week." 
 
 Paul's heart leaped. Surely then their legal 
 betrothal had not taken place. 
 
 "What happened, Opal?" 
 
 193
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "The inevitable!" 
 
 And again his heart bounded for joy! The 
 inevitable ! Surely that meant that the girl's bet- 
 ter nature had triumphed, had shown her the ig- 
 nominy of such a union in time to save her. He 
 looked at her for further information, but seeing 
 her evident embarrassment, forbore to pursue the 
 question further. 
 
 They wandered out through the luxurious gar- 
 den, and the spell of its enchantment settled upon 
 them both. 
 
 He pulled a crimson rose from a bush and began 
 listlessly to strip the thorns from the stalk. "Roses 
 in September," he said, "are like love in the au- 
 tumn of life." 
 
 And they both thought again of the Count and 
 a chill passed over their spirits. The girl watched 
 him curiously. 
 
 "Do you always cut the thorns from your 
 roses?" she asked. 
 
 "Certainly sooner or later. Don't you?" 
 
 "O no! I am a woman, you see, and I only 
 hold my rose tightly in my fingers and smile in 
 
 194
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 spite of the pricks as if to convince the world that 
 my rose has no thorns." 
 
 "Is that honest?" 
 
 "Perhaps not but yes, I think it is ! If one 
 really loves a rose, you see, one forgets that it 
 has thorns really forgets!" 
 
 "Until too late!" 
 
 But there was some undercurrent of hidden 
 meaning even in this subject, and Paul tried an- 
 other. 
 
 He asked her about the books she had read 
 since they parted and told her of his travels. He 
 painted for her a picture of the little cabin on the 
 western prairie, with its man and its woman and 
 its baby, and she listened with a strange softness 
 in her eyes. He felt that she understood. 
 
 There was a tiny lake in the garden, and they 
 sat upon the shore and looked into the water, at 
 an unaccountable loss for words. At last Paul, 
 with a boyish laugh, relieved the situation by roll- 
 ing up his sleeve and dabbling for pebbles in the 
 sand at the bottom. 
 
 There was not much said only a word now 
 and then, but both, in spite of their consciousness 
 
 195
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 of the barrier between them, were rejoicing 1 in the 
 fact that they were together, while Paul, happy 
 in his new-born resolution, was singing in his 
 heart. 
 
 Should he tell her now ? 
 
 He looked up quickly. 
 
 "Opal," he said, "you knew I would come." 
 
 "Why?" she asked. 
 
 "Because I love you !" 
 
 The girl tried to laugh away the serious import 
 of his tone. 
 
 "I am not looking for men to love me, Paul," 
 she said. 
 
 "No, that's the trouble. You never have to." 
 
 He turned away again and for a few moments 
 had no other apparent aim in life than a careful 
 scrutiny of the limpid water. 
 
 Somehow he felt a chill underlying her most 
 casual words to-day. What had become of the 
 freemasonry between them they had both so read- 
 ily recognized on shipboard? 
 
 Just then Gilbert Ledoux and his wife strolled 
 into the garden. They were genuinely pleased 
 to see Paul and insisted on keeping him for lunch- 
 
 196
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 eon. The conversation drifted to his western trip 
 and other less personal things and not again did 
 he have an opportunity to talk alone with Opal. 
 
 Paul took his departure soon after, promising 
 to return for dinner, and to bring Verdayne with 
 him. Then, he resolved to himself, he would tell 
 Opal why he had come. Then he would claim 
 her as his wife his queen ! 
 
 And Paul kept his word. 
 
 That evening they found themselves alone in 
 a deep-recessed window facing the dimly-lighted 
 street. 
 
 "Opal," said Paul, "do you know why I have 
 come to New Orleans ? Can't you imagine, dear ?" 
 
 She instantly divined the tenor of his thoughts, 
 and shook her head in a tremor of sudden fright. 
 
 "I have come to tell you that I have fought it 
 all out and that I cannot live without you. Though 
 I am breaking my plighted troth, I ask you to be- 
 come my wife!" 
 
 Her eyes glistened with a strange lustre. 
 
 197
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Oh, Paul! Paul!" she murmured, faintly. 
 "Why did you not say this before or why do 
 you tell me now?" 
 
 "Because now I know I love you more than 
 all the world more than my duty more than 
 my life ! Is that enough ?" 
 
 And Paul was about to break into a torrent of 
 passionate appeal, when Gilbert Ledoux joined 
 them and, shortly after, Mrs. Ledoux called Opal 
 to her side. 
 
 Opal looked miserably unhappy. Why was she 
 not rejoicing-? Paul knew that she loved him. 
 Nothing could ever make him doubt that. As he 
 stood wondering, idly exchanging platitudes with 
 his genial host, Mrs. Ledoux spoke in a tone of 
 ringing emphasis that lingered in Paul's ears all 
 the rest of his life, "I think, Opal, it is time to 
 share our secret !" 
 
 And then, as the girl's face paled, and her frail 
 form trembled with the force of her emotion, her 
 mother hastened to add, "Gentlemen, you will re- 
 joice with us that our daughter was last week 
 formally betrothed to the Count de Roannes !" 
 
 The inevitable had happened. 
 
 198
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 How THE remainder of the evening passed, 
 Paul Zalenska never knew. As he 
 looked back upon it, during the months 
 that followed, it seemed like some hideous dream 
 from which he was struggling to awake. He 
 talked, he smiled, he even laughed, but scarcely 
 of his own volition ; it was as though another per- 
 sonality acted through him. 
 
 He was a temperate boy, but that night he 
 drank more champagne than was good for him. 
 Paul Verdayne was grieved. Not that he cen- 
 sured the lad. He knew only too well the anguish 
 the Boy was suffering, and he could not find it 
 in his heart to blame him for the dissipation. And 
 yet Verdayne also knew how unavailing were all 
 such attempts to drown the sorrow that had so 
 shocked the Boy's sensitive spirit. 
 
 As he gazed regretfully at the Boy across the 
 dinner table, the butler placed a cablegram be- 
 
 199
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 fore him. Receiving a nod of permission from 
 his hostess, he hastily tore open the envelope and 
 paled at its contents. 
 
 The message was signed by the Verdaynes' 
 solicitor, and read : 
 
 Sir Charles very ill. Come immediately. 
 
 Before they left the house, Paul sought Opal 
 for a few last words. There were no obstacles 
 placed in his way now by anxious parental author- 
 ity. He smiled cynically as he noticed how clear 
 the way was made for him, now that Opal was 
 "safeguarded" by her betrothal. 
 
 She drew him to one side, whispering, "Before 
 you judge me too harshly, Paul, please listen to 
 what I have to say. I feel I have the right to 
 make this explanation, and you have the right to 
 hear it. Under the French law, I am legally bound 
 to the Count de Roannes. Fearing that I might 
 not remain true to a mere verbal pledge you 
 knew we were engaged, Paul, for I told you that, 
 
 200
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 last summer the Count asked that the betrothal 
 papers be executed before his unavoidable return 
 to Paris. Knowing no real reason for delay, since 
 it had to come some time, I consented ; but I stip- 
 ulated that I was to have six months of freedom 
 before becoming his wife. Arrangements have 
 been made for us all to go abroad next spring, and 
 we shall be married in Paris. Paul, I did not 
 tell you this, this afternoon I could not! I 
 wanted to see you the real you just once more, 
 before you heard the bitter news, for I knew that 
 after you had heard, you would never look or 
 speak the same to me again. Oh, Paul, pity me! 
 Pity me when I tell you that I asked for those six 
 months simply that I might dedicate them to you, 
 and to the burial, in my memory, of our little 
 dream of love ! It was only my little fancy, Paul ! 
 I wanted to play at being constant that long to our 
 dream. I wanted to wear my six-months' mourn- 
 ing for our still-born love. I thought it was only 
 a little game of 'pretend' to you, Paul why 
 should it be anything else? But it was very real 
 to me." 
 
 Her voice broke, and the Boy took her hand in 
 
 201
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 his, tenderly, for his resentment had long since 
 died away. 
 
 "Opal," he faltered, "I no longer know nor care 
 who or what I am. This experience has taken me 
 out of myself, and set my feet in strange paths. 
 I had a life to live, Opal, but I have forgotten it 
 in yours. I had theories, ideals, hopes, aspira- 
 tions but I don't know where they are now, 
 Opal. They are gone gone with your smile " 
 
 Opal's eyes grew soft with caresses. 
 
 "They will come back, Paul they must come 
 back! They were born in you of Truth itself, 
 not of a mere woman. You will forget me, Boy, 
 and your life will not be the pitiful waste you 
 think. It must not be !" 
 
 "I used to think that, Opal. It never seemed 
 to me that life could ever be an utter waste so 
 long as a man had work to do and the strength 
 and skill to do it. But now I'm all at sea! I 
 only know how I shall miss you!" 
 
 Opal grew thoughtful. 
 
 "And how will it be with me?" she said sadly. 
 "I have never learned to wear a mask. I can't 
 pose. I can't wear 'false smiles that cover an 
 
 2O2
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 aching heart' Perhaps the world may teach me 
 now but I'm not a hypocrite yet !" 
 
 "I believe you, Opal ! I love you because you 
 are you!" 
 
 "And I love you, Paul, because you are you!" 
 
 And even then he did not clasp her in his arms, 
 nor attempt it. She was another's now, and his 
 hands were tied. He must try to control his one 
 great weakness the longing for her. 
 
 And in the few moments left to them, they 
 talked and cheered each other, as intimate friends 
 on the eve of a long separation. They both knew 
 now that they loved but they also knew that they 
 must part and forever! 
 
 "I love you, Paul," said Opal, "even as you 
 love me. I do not hesitate to confess it again, be- 
 cause well, I am not yet his wife. And I want 
 to give you this one small comfort to help to make 
 you strong to fight and conquer, and endure !" 
 
 "But, Opal, you are the one woman in the 
 world God meant for me! How can I face the 
 world without you?" 
 
 "Better that you should, Paul, and keep on 
 fancying yourself loving me always, than that you 
 
 203
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 should have me for a wife, and then weary of me, 
 as men do weary of their wives !" 
 
 "Opal! Never!" 
 
 "Oh, but you might, Boy. Most men do. It's 
 their nature, I suppose." 
 
 "But it is not my nature, Opal, to grow tired 
 of what 1 love. I am not capricious. Why should 
 you think so ?" 
 
 "But it's human nature, Paul; there is no 
 denying that. To think, Paul, that we could grow 
 to clasp hands like this that we could kiss act- 
 ually kiss, Paul, calmly, as women kiss each other 
 that we could ever rest in each other's arms 
 and grow weary !" 
 
 But Paul would not listen. He always would 
 have loved her, always ! He loved her, anyway, 
 and always would, were she a thousand times the 
 Countess de Roannes, but it was too late! too 
 late ! 
 
 "Always remember, Paul, wherever you are 
 and whatever you do," went on Opal, "that I love 
 you. I know it now, and I know how much ! Let 
 the memory of it be an inspiration to you when 
 your spirits flag, and a consolation when skies are 
 
 204
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 gray, and Paul oh, I love you love you 
 that's all! Kiss me just once our last good- 
 bye! There can be no harm in that, when it's 
 for the last time !" 
 
 And Paul, with a heart-breaking sob, clasped 
 her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers as one 
 kisses the face of his beloved dead. He wondered 
 vaguely why he felt no passion wondered at the 
 utter languor of the senses that did not wake even 
 as he pressed his lips to hers. It was not a 
 woman's body in his arms but as the sexless 
 form of one long dead and lost to him forever. It 
 was not passion now it was love, stripped of all 
 sensuality, purged of all desire save the longing 
 to endure. 
 
 It was the hour of love's supremest triumph 
 renunciation ! 
 
 205
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 BACK in England again England in the fall 
 of the year England in the autumn of 
 life, for Sir Charles Verdayne was near- 
 ing his end. The Boy spent a few weeks at Ver- 
 dayne Place, and then left to pay his first visit 
 to his fiancee. Paul Verdayne was prevented by 
 his father's ill health from accompanying him to 
 Austria, as had been the original plan. 
 
 Opal had asked of the Boy during that last 
 strange hour they had spent together that he 
 should make this visit, and bow obediently to the 
 call of destiny as she had done. She did not 
 know who he really was, nor what station in life 
 his fiancee graced, but she did know that it was 
 his duty bravely and well to play his part in the 
 drama of life, whatever the role. She would not 
 have him shirk. It was a horrible thing, she had 
 said with a shudder none knew it better than she 
 
 207
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 but she would be glad all her life to think that 
 he had been no coward, and had not cringed 
 beneath the bitterest blow of fate, but had been 
 strong because she loved him and believed in 
 him. 
 
 And so, since Paul Verdayne could not be ab- 
 sent from his father's side, with many a reluctant 
 thought the Boy set forth for Austria alone. 
 
 During his absence, Isabella she who had been 
 Isabella Waring returned from Blackheath a 
 widow with two grown daughters two more 
 modern editions of the original Isabella. The 
 widow herself was graver and more matronly, yet 
 there was much of the old Isabella left, and Ver- 
 dayne was glad to see her. Lady Henrietta gave 
 her a cordial invitation to visit Verdayne Place, 
 which she readily accepted, passing many pleasant 
 hours with the friend of her youth and helping 
 to while away the long days that Verdayne found 
 so tiresome when the Boy was away from him. 
 
 Isabella was still "a good sort," and made life 
 much less unbearabk than it might have been, but 
 Verdayne often smiled to think of the "puppy- 
 love" he had once felt for her. It was amusing, 
 
 208
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 now, and they both laughed over it though Isa- 
 bella would not have been a woman had she not 
 wondered at times why her "old pal" had never 
 married. There had been chances, lots of them, 
 for the girls had always liked the blue-eyed, manly 
 boy he had been, and petted and flattered and 
 courted him all through his youth. Why hadn't 
 he chosen one of them? Had he really cared so 
 much for her Isabella? And she often found 
 herself looking with much pitying tenderness upon 
 the lonely man, whose heart seemed so empty of 
 the family ties it should have fostered and won- 
 dering. 
 
 Lady Henrietta, too, was set to thinking as the 
 days went by, and turning, one night, to her son, 
 "Paul," she said, "I begin to think that perhaps 
 I was wrong in separating you from the girl you 
 loved, and so spoiling your life. Isabella would 
 have made you a fairly good wife, I believe, as 
 wives go, and you must forgive your mother, who 
 meant it for the best. She did not see the way 
 clearly, then, and so denied you the one great 
 desire of your heart." 
 
 She looked at him closely, but his heart was 
 
 209
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 no longer worn upon his sleeve, and finding his 
 face non-committal, she went on slowly, feeling 
 her way carefully as she advanced. 
 
 "Perhaps it is not too late now, my son. Don't 
 let my prejudices stand in your way again, for 
 you are still young enough to be happy, and I 
 shall be truly glad to welcome any wife any !" 
 
 Verdayne did not reply. His eyes were study- 
 ing the pattern of the rug beneath his feet. His 
 mother's face flushed with embarrassment at the 
 delicacy of the subject, but she stumbled on 
 bravely. 
 
 "Paul," she said, "Isabella is young yet, and you 
 are not so very old. It may not, even now, be too 
 late to hold a little grandchild on my knee before 
 I die. I have been so fond of Paul he is so very 
 like you when you were a boy and have wished 
 oh, you don't know how a mother feels, Paul 
 I have often wished that he were your son, or that 
 I might have had a grandson just like him. Do 
 you know, Paul, I have often fancied that your 
 son, had you had one, would have been very like 
 this dear Boy." 
 
 Verdayne choked back a sob. If his mother 
 
 2IO
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 could only understand as some women would have 
 understood ! If he could have told her the truth ! 
 But, no, he never could. Even now it would 
 have been a terrible shock to her, and she could 
 never have forgiven, never held up her head again, 
 if she had known. 
 
 As for marrying Isabella could he? After all, 
 was it right to let the old name die out for want 
 of an heir? Was it just to his father? And Isa- 
 bella would not expect to be made love to. There 
 was never that sort of nonsense about her, and she 
 would make all due allowance for his age and se- 
 riousness. 
 
 His mother felt she had been very kind and 
 generous in renouncing the old objection of twen- 
 ty years' standing, and, too, she felt that it was 
 only right, after spoiling her son's life for so 
 long, to do her best to atone for the mistake. It 
 must be confessed she could not see what there 
 was about Isabella to hold the love and loyalty of 
 a man like Paul for so long, but then and she 
 sighed at the thought of the wasted years "Love 
 is blind," they say and so's a lover! And her 
 
 211
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 motherly heart longed for grandchildren Paul's 
 children as it had always longed for them. 
 
 Paul Verdayne sat opposite his penitent mother 
 and pondered. The scent from a bowl of red roses 
 on his mother's table almost overpowered him with 
 memories. 
 
 He thought of the couch of deep red roses on 
 which he had lain, caressed by the velvet petals. 
 He could inhale their fragrance even yet he 
 could look into her eyes and breathe the incense 
 of her hair her whole glorious person that was 
 like none other in all the world. Yes, she had been 
 happy and he would remember! She would be 
 happier yet could she know that he had been faith- 
 ful to his duty and surely this was his duty to 
 his race. His Queen would have it so, he felt 
 sure. 
 
 Rising, he bent over his mother, his eyes bright 
 with unshed tears, and kissed her calmly upon the 
 brow. Then he walked quietly from the room. 
 His resolution was firmly fixed. 
 
 He would marry Isabella ! 
 
 212
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 SIR CHARLES VERDAYNE lingered for several 
 weeks, no stronger, nor yet perceptibly 
 weaker. He took a sudden fancy to see his 
 old friend, Captain Grigsby, and the old salt was 
 accordingly sent for. His presence acted as a 
 tonic upon the dying man, and the two old 
 friends spent many pleasant hours together, talk- 
 ing as old people delight in talking of the days 
 of the distant past. 
 
 "Is this widow the Isabella who once raised the 
 devil with your Paul ?" asked Grigsby. 
 
 "Same wench !" answered Sir Charles, a twin- 
 kle in his eye. 
 
 "Hum !" said the Captain and then said again, 
 "Hum!" Then he added meditatively, "Blasted 
 unlucky kiss that! Likely wench enough, but 
 never set the Thames on fire ! nor me !" 
 
 "Oh the kiss didn't count," said Sir Charles. 
 
 213
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "As I said to the boy's mother at the time, a man 
 isn't obliged to marry every woman he kisses! 
 Mighty good thing, too eh, Grig? Besides, a 
 kiss like that is an insult to any flesh and blood 
 woman !" 
 
 "An insult?" 
 
 "The worst kind! You see, Grig, no woman 
 likes to be kissed that way. Whether she's capable 
 of feeling a single thrill of passion herself or not, 
 she likes to be sure that she can inspire it in a 
 man. And a kiss like that well, it rouses all her 
 fighting blood! Makes her feel she's no woman 
 at all in the man's eye merely a doll to be kissed. 
 D'ye see? It's damned inconsistent, of course, but 
 it's the woman of it !" 
 
 "The devil of it, you mean!" the old Captain 
 chuckled in response. Then, "Paul had a lucky 
 escape," he said, as he looked furtively around 
 the room for listening ears, "mighty lucky escape ! 
 And an experience right on the heels of it to make 
 up for the loss of a hundred such wenches and 
 say, Charles, he's got a son to be proud of ! The 
 Boy is certainly worth all the price !" 
 
 "Any price^-any price, Grig!" Then the old 
 
 214
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 man went on, "If Henrietta only knew! She 
 thinks the world of the youngster, you know 
 no one could help that but what if she knew? 
 Paul's been mighty cautious. I often laugh when 
 I see them out together him and the Boy and 
 think what a sensation one could spring on the 
 public by letting the cat out of the bag. And the 
 woman would suffer. Wouldn't she, just! 
 Wouldn't they tear her to pieces !" 
 
 "Yes, they would," said the Captain, "they cer- 
 tainly would. This is a world of hypocrites, 
 Charles, damned rotten hypocrites!" 
 
 "That's what it is, Grig! Not one of those 
 same old hens who would have said, 'Ought we 
 to visit her?' and denounced the whole 'immoral' 
 affair, and all that sort of thing not one of them, 
 I say, but would " 
 
 "Give her very soul to know what such a love 
 means! O they would, Charles they would 
 every damned old cat of them, who would never 
 get an opportunity to play the questionable no, 
 not one in a thousand years if they searched for 
 it forever!" 
 
 "Yet women are made so, Grigsby they can't 
 
 215
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 help it! Henrietta would faint at the mere sug- 
 gestion of accepting as a daughter-in-law a woman 
 with a past !" 
 
 And the old man sighed. 
 
 "I'd have given my eyes yes, I would, Grig 
 to have seen that woman just once! God! the 
 man she made out of my boy ! Of course it may 
 have been for the best that it turned out as it did, 
 but damn it all, Grig, she was worth while! 
 There's no dodging that !" 
 
 "Nobody wants to dodge it, Charles ! She was 
 over-sexed, perhaps but better that than under- 
 sexed -eh ?" 
 
 But the exhilaration caused by the coming of 
 his old friend gradually wore itself away, and Sir 
 Charles began to grow weaker. And at last the 
 end came. He had grown anxious to see the Boy 
 again, and the young fellow had returned and 
 spent much time with the old man, who loved 
 the sound of his voice as it expressed his fresh, 
 frank ideas. 
 
 216
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 But Sir Charles spent his last hours with his 
 son. 
 
 "Paul," he said, in a last confidential whisper, 
 touching upon the theme that had never been 
 mentioned between them before, "I understand 
 everything you know, and I'm proud of you 
 and him! I have wanted to say something, or 
 do something for you often often to help you 
 but it's the sort of thing a chap has to fight out 
 for himself, and I thought I'd better keep out of 
 it! But I wanted you to know now that I've 
 known it all all along and been proud of you 
 both!" 
 
 And their hands clasped closely, and the eyes 
 of both were wet, but even on the brink of death 
 the lips of the younger man were sealed. The 
 silence of one-and-twenty years remained un- 
 broken. It was not a foolish reticence that re- 
 strained him but simply that he could not find 
 words to voice the memories that grew more and 
 more sacred with the passing of the years. 
 
 Ajtid at evening, when the family had gathered 
 about him, the old man lay with his son's hand in 
 his, but his eyes loqked beyond and rested on the 
 
 217
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 face of the Boy, who seemed the renewal of his 
 son's youth, when life was one glad song! And 
 thus he passed to the Great Beyond. 
 
 And his son was Sir Paul Verdayne, the last of 
 his race. 
 
 That night, the young baronet and the Boy 
 sat alone over their cigars. The Boy spoke at 
 some length of his extensive Austrian visit. The 
 Princess Elodie would make him a good wife, he 
 said. She was of good sturdy stock, healthy, 
 strong and, well, a little heavy and dull, perhaps, 
 but one couldn't expect everything ! At least, her 
 honor would never be called into question. He 
 would always feel sure that his name was safe 
 with her! He was glad he went to Austria. 
 There were political complications that he had 
 not understood before which made the marriage 
 an absolute necessity for the salvation of his coun- 
 try's position among the kingdoms of the world, 
 and he was more resigned to it now. Yes, indeed, 
 he was far more resigned. The princess wasn't 
 by any means impossible not a half bad sort 
 and yes, he was resigned ! He said it over and 
 
 218
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 over, but without convincing Sir Paul or de- 
 ceiving himself! 
 
 As for the elder man, he said but little. He 
 had been wondering throughout that dinner-hour 
 whether he could ever really make Isabella his 
 wife. The Boy thought of Isabella, too, and was 
 anxious to know whether his Father Paul was go- 
 ing to be happy at last. He had been very curious 
 to see the woman who could play so cruel a part 
 toward the man he loved. If he had been Ver- 
 dayne, he thought, he would never forgive her 
 never! Still, if Father Paul loved the woman 
 as he certainly must to have remained single for 
 her sake so long it put a different face on the 
 matter, and of course it was Verdayne's affair, 
 not his! The Boy had been disappointed in Isa- 
 bella's appearance and attractions she was not 
 at all the woman he had imagined his Father Paul 
 would love but of course she was older now, 
 and age changes some women, and, and well, he 
 only hoped that his friend would be happy 
 happy in his own way, whatever that might be. 
 
 At last, he summoned Vasili to him and called 
 for his own particular yellow wine the Imperial 
 
 219
 
 Tokayi and the old man filled the glasses. It 
 was too much for Verdayne and all thoughts of 
 Isabella were consigned to eternal oblivion as he 
 remembered the time when he had sipped that 
 wine with his Queen in the little hotel on the 
 Biirgenstock. 
 
 She would have no cause for jealousy his 
 darling ! 
 
 22O
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 IT was November when Sir Charles died, and 
 Lady Henrietta betook herself to her sis- 
 ter's for consolation, while Sir Paul and the 
 Boy, with a common impulse, departed for India. 
 
 They spent Christmas in Egypt, the winter 
 months in the desert, and at last spring came, with 
 its remembrance of duties to be done. And to 
 the elder man England made its insistent call, as 
 it always did in March. For was it not in Eng- 
 land, and in March, the tidings reached him that 
 unto him a son was born? 
 
 He must go back. 
 
 So at last, acting upon a pre-arrangement to 
 which the young Prince had not been a party, 
 they made their way back to their own world of 
 men and women. 
 
 "Boy," said Sir Paul, one day, "the time has 
 come when many questions you have asked 
 
 221
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 and wondered about are to be answered, as is 
 your due. It was your mother's wish that you 
 should go, at the beginning of May, alone, to 
 Lucerne. There you will find letters awaiting you 
 from her from your Uncle Peter yes, even 
 from myself telling you the whole secret of your 
 birth, the story of your inheritance." 
 "Why Lucerne, Father Paul?" 
 "It was your mother's wish and mine!" 
 Then, with a rush of tenderness, the older man 
 
 1 1 
 
 threw his arm around the Boy's shoulders. "Boy," 
 he said, "be charitable and lenient and kind 
 whatever you read !" 
 
 "And what are you going to do, Father Paul? 
 I have not quite two weeks of freedom left, and 
 I begrudge every day I am forced to spend away 
 from you. You will go with me to see me crowned 
 and married?" 
 
 "Certainly, Boy! You are to stay in Lucerne 
 only until you are sure you understand all the 
 revelations of these letters, and their full import. 
 It may be a week it may be a day it may be 
 but a few hours, but I can't go with you, and you 
 must not ask me to! It is an experience you 
 
 222
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 must face alone. I will await you in Venice, Paul, 
 and be sure that when you want me, Boy, I will 
 come !" 
 
 The Boy's sensitive nature was stirred to the 
 depths by the emotion in Sir Paul's face emotion 
 that all his life long he had never seen there be- 
 fore. He grasped his hand 
 
 "Father Paul," he began, but Sir Paul shook 
 his head at the unspoken appeal in his face and 
 bade him be patient just a little longer and await 
 his letters, for he could tell him nothing. 
 
 And thus they parted ; the Boy to seek in Lu- 
 cerne the unveiling of his destiny, the man to wait 
 in Venice, a place he had shunned for one-and- 
 twenty years, but which was dearer to him than 
 any other city in the world. It was there that 
 he had lived the climax of his love-life, with its 
 unutterable ecstasy and unutterable pain. 
 
 Vasili had preceded his young master to Lu- 
 cerne with the letters that had been too precious, 
 and of too secret a nature, to be entrusted to the 
 post. Who can define the sensations of the young 
 prince as he held in his hand the whole solution 
 of the mystery that had haunted all his years ? He 
 
 223
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 trembled paled. What was this secret perhaps 
 this terrible secret which was to be a secret no 
 longer ? 
 
 Alone in his apartment, he opened the little 
 packet and read the note from the Regent, which 
 enclosed the others, and then he could read no 
 further. The few words of information that there 
 stared him in the face drove every other thought 
 from his mind, every other emotion from his 
 heart. His father ! Why hadn't he seen ? Why 
 hadn't he known ? A thousand significant memo- 
 ries rushed over him in the light of the startling 
 revelation. How blind he had been! And he 
 sat for hours, unheeding the flight of time, think- 
 ing only the one thought, saying over and over 
 again the one name, the name of his father, his 
 own father, whom he had loved so deeply all his 
 life 
 
 Paul Verdayne! 
 
 224
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 AT last, when he felt that he could control 
 his scattered senses, he turned over the 
 letters in the packet and found his moth- 
 er's. How his boyish heart thrilled at this mes- 
 sage from the dead ! a message that he had wait- 
 ed for, and that had been waiting for him, one- 
 and-twenty years ! 
 The letter began: 
 
 "Once, my baby, thy father long before he 
 was thy father had a presentiment that if he be- 
 came my lover my life would find a tragic end. 
 
 "Once, likewise, I told thy father, before he be- 
 came my lover, that the price we might have to 
 pay, if we permitted ourselves to love, would be 
 sorrow and death! For, my baby, these are so 
 often the terrible cost of such a love as ours. That 
 he has been my lover my beloved heart of my 
 heart thine own existence is the living proof; 
 and something an intangible something tells 
 
 225
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 me that the rest of his prophecy will likewise be 
 fulfilled. We have known the sorrow aye, as 
 few others have and even now I feel that we 
 shall also know death ! 
 
 "It is because of this curious presentiment of 
 mine that I write down for thee, my baby my 
 baby Paul this story of thy father and thy 
 mother, and the great love that gave thee to the 
 world. It is but right, before thou comest into 
 thy kingdom, that thou shouldst know thou and 
 thou alone the secret of thy birth, that thou 
 mayst carry with thee into the big world thy 
 birthright the sweetness of a supreme love." 
 
 Then briefly, but as completely and vividly as 
 the story could be written, she pictured for him 
 the beautiful idyl she and her lover had lived, here 
 in this very spot, two-and-twenty years ago ; told 
 him, in her own quaint words, of the beautiful 
 boy she had found in Lucerne, that glorious May 
 so long ago, and how it had been her caprice to 
 waken him, until the caprice had become her love, 
 and afterwards her life; told him how she had 
 seen the danger, and had warned the boy to leave 
 Lucerne, while there was yet time, but that he 
 had answered that he would chance the hurt, be- 
 
 226
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 cause he wished to live, and he knew that only 
 she could teach him how only she could prove 
 to him the truth of her own words, that life was 
 love! 
 
 She told how weary and unhappy she had been, 
 picturing with no light fingers the misery of her 
 life married when a mere child to a vicious hus- 
 band and all the insults and brutality she was 
 forced to endure ; and then, for contrast, told him 
 tenderly how she had been young again for this 
 boy she had found in Lucerne. 
 
 There was not one little detail of that idyllic 
 dream of love omitted from the picture she drew 
 for him of these two and their sublime three 
 weeks of life on the Biirgenstock with their final 
 triumphant, but bitter culmination in Venice. She 
 told him of what they had been pleased to call 
 their wedding the wedding of their souls nor 
 did she seek to lessen the enormity of their sin. 
 
 She touched with the tenderest of fingers upon 
 the first dawn in their hearts of the hope of the 
 coming of a child a child who would hold their 
 souls together forever a child who would im- 
 mortalize their love till it should live on, and on, 
 
 227
 
 GATE DAY 
 
 and on, through countless generations perhaps 
 till who could say how much the world might be 
 benefited and helped just because they two had 
 loved ! 
 
 And then she told him sweetly, as a mother 
 should of all her dreams for her son all her 
 hopes and ambitions that were centered around his 
 little life the life of her son who was to redeem 
 the land told him how ennobled and exalted she 
 had felt that this strong, manly Englishman was 
 her lover, and how sure she had been that their 
 child would have a noble mind. 
 
 "Thou wilt think my thoughts, my baby Paul 
 thou wilt dream my dreams, and know all my am- 
 bitions and longings. Thou canst not be ignoble 
 or base, for thou wert born of a love that makes 
 all other unions mean and low and sordid by com- 
 parison." 
 
 Then, after telling, as only she could tell it, 
 of the bitterness of that parting in Venice, when, 
 because of the threatening danger, from which 
 there was no escape, she left her lover to save his 
 life, she went on : 
 
 228
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Dost thou know yet, when thou readest this, 
 little Paul, with thy father's eyes dost thou 
 know, I wonder, the meaning of that great love 
 which to the twain who realize it becomes a sac- 
 rament dost understand? a sacrament holier 
 even than a prayer. It was even so with thy 
 father and me dost thou canst thou under- 
 stand ? If not yet, sometime thou wilt, and thou 
 wilt then forgive thy mother for her sin." 
 
 She told of the taunts and persecutions to which 
 she was forced to submit upon her return to her 
 kingdom. The king and his friends had vilely 
 commended her for her "patriotism" in finding an 
 heir to the throne. "Napoleon would have felt 
 honored," her husband had sneered, "if Josephine 
 had adopted thy method of finding him the heir 
 he desired !" But through it all, she said, she had 
 not faltered. She had held the one thought su- 
 preme in her heart and remembered that however 
 guilty she might be in the eyes of the world, there 
 was a higher truth in the words of Mrs. Brown- 
 ing, "God trusts me with a child," and had dared 
 to pray. 
 
 229
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "To pray for strength and grace and wisdom 
 to give thee birth, my baby, and to make thee all 
 that thou shouldst be to develop thee into the 
 man I and thy father would have thee become. 
 I was not only giving an heir to the throne of my 
 realm. I was giving a son to the husband of my 
 soul. But the world did not know that. What- 
 ever it might suspect, it could actually know 
 nothing! The secret was thy father's and mine 
 his and mine alone and now it is thine, as it 
 needs must be! Guard it well, my baby, and let 
 it make thy life and thy manhood full of strength 
 and power and sweetness and glory and joy, and 
 remember, as thou readest for the first time this 
 story of thy coming into the world, that thy 
 mother counted it her greatest, proudest glory to 
 be the chosen love of thy father, and the mother 
 of his son." 
 
 She had touched as lightly as she could upon 
 the dark hours of her baby's coming, when she 
 was doomed to pass through that Valley of the 
 Shadow far away from the protecting and com- 
 forting love of him whose right it was by every 
 law of Nature to have been, then of all times, by 
 her side ; but the Boy felt the pathos of it, and his 
 eyes filled with tears. His mother the mother 
 
 230
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 of his dreams his glorious queen-mother to 
 suffer all this for him for him! 
 
 And Father Paul! his own father! What 
 must this cross have been to him! Surely he 
 would love him all the rest of his life to make up 
 for all that suffering! 
 
 Then he thought of the other letters and he read 
 them all, his heart torn between grief and anger 
 for they told him all the appalling details of the 
 tragedy that had taken his mother from him, and 
 left his father and himself bereaved of all that 
 made life dear and worth the living to man and 
 boy. 
 
 One of the letters was from Sir Paul, telling 
 the story over again from the man's point of 
 view, and laying bare at last the great secret the 
 Boy had so often longed to hear. Nothing was 
 kept back. Even every note every little scrap 
 of his mother's writing had been sacredly kept 
 and was now enclosed for the eyes of their son 
 to read. The closed door in Father Paul's life 
 
 y 
 
 was unlocked now, and his son entered and un- 
 derstood, wondering why he had been so blind 
 that he had not seen it all before. The writing 
 
 231
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 on the wall had certainly been plain enough. And 
 he smiled to remember the readiness with which 
 he had believed the plausible story of Isabella 
 Waring ! 
 
 And that man the husband of his mother 
 the king who had taken her dear life from her 
 with a curse upon his lips! Thank God he was 
 not his father ! No, in all the world of men, there 
 was no one but Paul Verdayne no one to whom 
 he would so willingly have given the title and 
 to him he had given it in his heart long before. 
 
 He sat and read the letters through again, word 
 by word, living in imagination the life his mother 
 had lived, feeling all she had felt. God ! the bliss, 
 the agony of it all ! 
 
 And Paul Zalenska, surrounded by the mes- 
 sages from the past that had given him being, and 
 looking at the ruin of his own life with eyes newly 
 awakened to the immensity of his loss, bowed his 
 face in his hands and wept like a heart-broken 
 child over the falling of his house of cards. 
 
 Ah ! his mother had understood she had loved 
 and suffered. She was older than he, too, and 
 
 232
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 had known her world as he could not possibly 
 know it, and yet she had bade him take the gifts 
 of life when they came his way. 
 
 And God help him ! he had not done so 1 
 
 233
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE next morning, Paul Zalenska rose early. 
 He had not slept well. He was troubled 
 with conflicting emotions, conflicting 
 memories. The wonder and sorrow of it all had 
 been too much even for his youth and health to 
 endure. His mother had won so much from life, 
 he thought and he so little ! He thought of Opal 
 indeed, when was she ever absent from his 
 thoughts, waking or sleeping? and the memory 
 of his loss made him frantic. Opal his darling ! 
 And they might have been just as happy as his 
 mother and father had been, but they had let 
 their happiness slip from them ! What fools ! Oh, 
 what fools they had been ! Not to have risked 
 anything everything for their happiness ! And 
 where was she now? In Paris, in her husband's 
 arms, no doubt, where he could hold her to him, 
 and caress her and kiss her at his own sweet will ! 
 
 235
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 God ! It was intolerable, unthinkable ! And he 
 Paul, her lover lying there alone, who would 
 have died a thousand deaths, if that were possible, 
 to save her from such a fate ! 
 
 At last he forced the thought of his own lo^s 
 from him, and thought again of his mother. Ah, 
 but her death had been opportune ! How glorious 
 to die when life and love had reached their zenith ! 
 in the fullness of joy to take one's farewell of 
 the world ! 
 
 And in the long watches of that wakeful night, 
 he formed the resolution that he put into effect 
 at the first hint of dawn. He would spend one 
 entire day in solitude. He would traverse step 
 by step the primrose paths of his mother's idyllic 
 dream; he would visit every scene, every nook. 
 she and her lover had immortalized in their memo- 
 ries; he would see it all, feel it all yes, live it 
 all, and become so impregnated with its witchery 
 that it would shed lustre and glory upon all the 
 bleak years to come. So well had she told her 
 story, so perfect had been its word-painting, he 
 was sure that he would recognize every scene. 
 
 He explored the ivy-terrace leading to his 
 
 236
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 mother's room, he walked up and down under 
 the lime trees, and he sat on the bench still in 
 position under the ivy hanging from the balus- 
 trade, and looked up wistfully at the windows of 
 the rooms that had been hers. Then he engaged 
 a launch and crossed the lake, and was not satis- 
 fled until he had found among the young beeches 
 on the other side what he felt must have been the 
 exact spot where his mother had peeped through 
 the leaves upon her ardent lover, before she knew 
 him. And he roamed about among the trees, 
 feeling a subtle sense of satisfaction in being in 
 the same places that they had been who gave him 
 being, as though the spirits of their two natures 
 must still haunt the spot and leave some trace of 
 their presence even yet He followed each of 
 the three paths until he had decided to his own 
 satisfaction by which one his mother had escaped 
 from her pursuer, that day, and he laughed a 
 buoyant, boyish laugh at the image it suggested 
 of Verdayne, the misogynist his stately, staid old 
 Father Paul actually "running after a woman !" 
 Truly the Boy was putting aside his own sor- 
 row and discontent to-day. He was living in 
 
 237
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 the past, identifying himself with every phase of 
 it, living in imagination the life of these two so 
 dear to him, and rejoicing in their joy. Life had 
 certainly been one sweet song to them, for a brief 
 space, a duet in Paradise, broken up alas for 
 the Boy ! before it had become the trio it should 
 have developed into, by every law of Nature. 
 
 He sought the little village that they had vis- 
 ited before him, and lunched at the same little 
 hotel. He drove out to the little farmhouse where 
 the lovers had had their first revelation of him 
 their baby and he wept over the loss of the glo- 
 rious mother she would have been to him. He 
 even climbed the mountain and looked with her 
 eyes out over the landscape. He was young and 
 strong, and he determined to let nothing escape 
 him to let no sense of fatigue deter him but to 
 crowd the day full of memories of her. 
 
 The Boy, as his mother had been before him, 
 was enraptured by all that he saw. The beauty 
 of the snow-capped mountains against the blue 
 of the sky and the golden glamour of the sunshine 
 appealed to him keenly, and he watched the re- 
 
 238
 
 ONE T>AY 
 
 flection of it all in the crystal lake in a trance of 
 delight. 
 
 "Ah," he thought, "had they deliberately 
 searched the world over for a fitting setting for 
 their idyl, they could not have selected a retreat 
 more perfect than this. It was made for lovers 
 who love as they did." 
 
 And at last, under the witchery of the star- 
 studded skies, wearied and hungry, but filled 
 and thrilled with the fragrance and glory of the 
 memories of the mother whom his young heart 
 idealized, he left the launch at the landing by 
 the terrace steps and started blithely for the lit- 
 tle restaurant, dreaming, always dreaming, not 
 of the future but of the past. 
 
 For him, alas, the future held no promise! 
 
 239
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 DURING the Boy's absence that day a new 
 guest had arrived at the little hotel. A 
 capricious American lady, who had 
 come to Lucerne, "for a day or two's rest," she 
 said, before proceeding to Paris where an impa- 
 tient Count awaited her and his wedding-day. 
 
 Yes, Opal was actually in Lucerne, and the 
 suite of rooms once occupied by the mysterious 
 Madame Zalenska were now given over to the 
 little lady from over the seas, who, in spite of 
 her diminutive stature, contrived to impress 
 everybody with a sense of her own importance. 
 She had just received a letter from her fiance, an 
 unusually impatient communication, even from 
 him. He was anxious, he said, for her and his 
 long-delayed honeymoon. Honeymoon! God 
 help her! Her soul recoiled in horror from the 
 hideous prospect. Only two days more, she 
 
 241
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 thought, pressing her lips tightly tog-ether. Oh, 
 the horror of it! She dared not think of it, or 
 she would go mad! But she would not falter. 
 She had told herself that she was now resigned. 
 She was going to defeat Fate atter all! 
 
 She had partaken of her dinner, and was 
 standing behind the ivy that draped the little 
 balcony, watching the moon in its setting of 
 Swiss skies and mystic landscape. How white 
 and calm and spotless it appeared! It was not a 
 man's face she saw there but that of a woman 
 the face of a nun in its saintly, virgin purity, 
 suggesting only sweet inspiring thoughts of the 
 glory of fidelity to duty, of the comfort and 
 peace and rest that come of renunciation. 
 
 Opal clasped her hands together with a thrill 
 of exultation at her own victory over the love 
 and longings that were never to be fulfilled. A 
 song of prayer and thanksgiving echoed in her 
 heart over the thought that she had been strong 
 enough to do her duty and bear the cross that 
 life had so early laid upon her shoulders. She 
 felt so good so true so pure so strong to- 
 night. She would make her life, she thought 
 
 242
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 her life that could know no personal love 
 abound in love for all the world, and be to all it 
 touched a living, breathing benediction. 
 
 As she gazed she suddenly noticed a lighted 
 launch on the little lake, and an inexplicable 
 prescience disturbed the calm of her musings. She 
 watched, with an intensity she could not have 
 explained, the gradual approach of the little 
 craft. What did that boat, or its passenger, 
 matter to her that she should feel such an acute 
 interest in its movements? Yet something told 
 her it did matter much, and though she laughed 
 at her superstition, nevertheless her heart lis- 
 tened to it, and dared not gainsay its insistent 
 whisper. 
 
 A young man, straight and tall and lithe, 
 bounded from the launch and mounted the ter- 
 race steps. She saw his clean-cut profile, his 
 well-groomed appearance, which even in the 
 moonlight was plainly evident She noted the 
 regal bearing of his well-knit figure, and she 
 caught the delicious aroma of the particular 
 brand of cigar Paul always smoked, as he passed 
 beneath the balcony where she stood. 
 
 243
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 She turned in very terror and fled to her 
 rooms, pulling the curtains closer. She shrank 
 like a frightened child upon the couch, her face 
 white and drawn with fear of what, she did 
 not know. 
 
 After a time long, terrible hours, it seemed 
 to her she parted the curtains with tremulous 
 fingers and looked out again at the sky, and 
 shuddered. The virgin nun-face had mysteri- 
 ously changed the moon that had looked so 
 pure and spotless was now blood-red with 
 passion. 
 
 Opal crept back, pulling the curtains together 
 again, and threw herself face downward upon 
 the couch. God help her! 
 
 Paul Zalenska lingered long over his dinner 
 that night. He was tired and thoughtful. And 
 he enjoyed sitting at that little table where his 
 father perhaps sat the night he had first seen 
 her who became his love. 
 
 244
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 And Paul pictured to himself that first meeting. 
 He tried to imagine that he was Paul Verdayne, 
 and that shortly his lady would come in with her 
 stately tread, and take her seat, and be waited 
 upon by her elderly attendant. Perhaps she 
 would look at him through those long dark lashes 
 with eyes that seemed not to see. But there was 
 no special table, to-night, and the Boy felt that 
 the picture was woefully incomplete that he had 
 been left out of the scheme of things entirely. 
 
 After finishing his meal, he went out, as his 
 father had done, out under the stars and sat on 
 the little bench under the ivy, and smoked a 
 cigar. He felt a curious thrill of excitement, 
 quite out of keeping with his loneliness. Was 
 it just the memory of that old love-story that 
 had stirred his blood? Why did his pulse leap, 
 his blood race through his veins like this, his 
 heart rise to his throat and hammer there so 
 fiercely, so strangely. Only one influence in all 
 the world had ever done this to him only one 
 influence one woman and she was miles and 
 miles away! 
 
 245
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Suddenly, impelled by some force beyond his 
 power of resistance a sense of someone's gaze 
 fixed upon him, he raised his eyes to the ivy 
 above him. There, faint and indistinct in the 
 shadow of the leaves, but quite unmistakable, he 
 saw the white, frightened face of the girl he 
 loved, her luminous eyes looking straight down 
 into his. 
 
 He sprang to his feet, and pulled himself up 
 by the ivy to the level of the terrace, but she had 
 vanished and the watching stars danced mock- 
 ingly overhead. Was he dreaming? Had that 
 strange old love-story taken away from him the 
 last remaining shred of sanity ? Surely he hadn't 
 seen Opal! She was in Paris damn it! and he 
 clenched his teeth at the thought certainly not 
 at Lucerne! 
 
 He looked at the windows of that enchanted 
 room. All was darkness and silence. Cursing 
 himself for a madman, he strode into the hall 
 and examined the Visitors' List. Suddenly the 
 blood leaped to his face his head reeled his 
 heart beat to suffocation. He was iwt dream- 
 
 246
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 ing, for there, as plainly as words could be 
 written, was the entry: 
 
 Miss Ledoux and maid, New Orleans, U. S. A. 
 She was there in Lucerne ! his Opal ! 
 
 247
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 How Paul reached his room, he never 
 knew. He was in an ecstasy his 
 young blood surging through his veins 
 in response to the leap of the seething passions 
 within. 
 
 Have you never felt it, Reader? If you have 
 not, you had better lay aside this book, for you 
 will never, never understand what followed 
 what must follow, in the very nature of human 
 hearts. 
 
 Fate once more had placed happiness in his 
 grasp should he fling it from him ? Never ! never 
 again ! He remembered his mother and her great 
 love, as she had bade him. 
 
 This day, following as it did his mother's 
 letter, had been a revelation to him of the possi- 
 bilities of life, and of his own capacity for enjoy- 
 ing it. In one week, only one week more, he 
 
 249
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 must take upon his shoulders the burdens ot a 
 kingdom. Should he let a mistaken sense of 
 right and duty defraud him a second time? Was 
 this barrier which a stronger or a weaker man 
 would have brushed aside without a second 
 thought to wreck his life, and Opal's? He 
 laughed exultingly. His whole soul was on fire, 
 his whole body aflame. 
 
 Beyond the formality of the betrothal, Opal 
 had not yet been bound to the Count. She was 
 not his yet! She could not be Paul's wife 
 Fate had made that forever impossible but she 
 should be his, as he knew she already was at 
 heart. 
 
 They loved, and was not love everything ! 
 
 He paced the floor in an excitement beyond 
 his control. Opal should give him, out of her 
 life, one day one day in the little hotel on the 
 Biirgenstock, where his mother and her lover 
 had been so happy. They, too, should be happy 
 as happy as two mating birds in a new-built 
 nest for one day they would forget all yester- 
 days and all to-morrows. He would make that 
 one day as glorious and shadowless for her as a 
 
 250
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 day could possibly be made one day in which 
 to forget that the world was gray one day 
 which should live in their memories throughout 
 all the years to come as the one ray of sunshine 
 in two bleak and dreary lives! 
 
 And tempted, as he admitted to himself, 
 quite beyond all reason, he swore by all that he 
 held sacred to risk everything brave every- 
 thing for the sake of living one day in Paradise. 
 
 "We have a right to be happy," he said. 
 "Everyone has a right to be happy, and we have 
 done no wrong to the world. Why should we 
 two, who have the capability of making so much 
 of our lives and doing so much for the world, as 
 we might have, together why should we be 
 sentenced to the misery of mere existence, while 
 men and women far less worthy of happiness 
 enjoy life in its utmost ecstasy?" 
 
 One thing he was firmly resolved upon. Opal 
 should not know his real rank. She should give 
 herself to Paul Zalenska, the man not to Paul 
 the Prince! His rank should gloss over nothing 
 nothing and for all she knew now to the con- 
 
 251
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 trary, her future rank as Countess de Roannes 
 was superior to his own. 
 
 And then as silence fell about the little hotel, 
 unbroken save by soma strolling musicians in 
 the square near at hand who sent the most ten- 
 der of Swiss love-melodies out upon the evening 
 air, Paul walked out to the terrace, passed 
 through the little gate, and reaching the bal- 
 cony, knocked gently but imperatively upon the 
 door of the room that was once his mother's. 
 
 The door was opened cautiously. 
 
 Paul stepped inside, and closed it softly be- 
 hind him.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 IN the moonlit room, Paul and Opal faced 
 each other in a silence heavy with 
 emotion. 
 
 It had been months since they parted, yet for 
 some moments neither spoke. Opal first found 
 her voice. 
 
 "Paul! . You saw me!" 
 
 "I felt your eyes!" 
 
 "Oh, why did I come!" 
 
 Opal had begun to prepare for the night and 
 had thrown about her shoulders a loose robe of 
 crimson silk. Her lustrous hair, like waves of 
 burnished copper, hung below her waist in beau- 
 tiful confusion. With trembling fingers she 
 attempted to secure it. 
 
 "Your hair is wonderful, Opal! Please leave 
 it as it is," Paul said softly. And, curiously 
 enough, she obeyed in silence. 
 
 253
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Paul," she said at last, with a little nervous 
 laugh, as she recovered her self-possession and 
 seated herself on the couch, "don't stand staring 
 at me! I'm not a tragedy queen! You're too 
 melodramatic. Sit down and tell me why you've 
 come here at this hour." 
 
 Paul obeyed mechanically, his gaze still upon 
 her. She shrank from the expression of his eyes 
 it was the old tiger-look again! 
 
 "I came because I had to, Opal. I could not 
 have done otherwise. I have something to tell 
 you." 
 
 "Something to tell me?" she repeated. 
 
 "Yes. The most interesting story in the 
 world to me, Opal a letter from my mother a 
 letter to me alone, which I can share with only 
 one woman in the world the woman I love!" 
 
 Her eyes fell. As she raised her hand abstract- 
 edly to adjust the curtain, Paul saw the flash of 
 her betrothal ring. He caught her hand in his 
 and quietly slipped the ring from her finger. She 
 seized the jewel with her free hand and tried to 
 thrust it into her bosom. 
 
 "No! no! not there!" he remonstrated, and 
 
 254
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 was not satisfied until she had crossed the room 
 and hidden it from his sight. 
 
 "Does that please your majesty?" she asked, 
 with a curious little tremble in her voice. 
 
 Paul started, and stared at her with a world 
 of wonder in his eyes. Could she know? 
 
 "Your majesty " he stammered. 
 
 "Why not?" she laughed. "You speak as 
 though you had but to command to be obeyed." 
 
 "Forgive me, dear," he answered softly. 
 
 And Opal became her sympathetic self again. 
 
 "Tell me about your mother, Paul," she said. 
 
 And Paul, beginning at the very beginning, 
 told her the whole story as it had been told to 
 him, reading much of his mother's letter to her, 
 reserving only such portions of it as would re- 
 veal the identity he was determined to keep 
 secret until she was his. The girl was moved to 
 the depths of her nature by the beauty and 
 pathos of it all, and then the thought came to 
 her, "This, then, is Paul's heritage his birth- 
 right ! He, like me, is doomed !" 
 
 And her heart ached for him and for herself! 
 
 But Paul did not give her long to muse. Sit- 
 
 255
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 ting down beside her for the first time, he told 
 her the plan he had been turning over in his 
 mind for their one day together. 
 
 "Surely," he said, "it is not too much to ask 
 out of a lifetime of misery one little day of 
 bliss! Just one day in which there shall be no 
 yesterday, and no to-morrow one day of 
 Elysium against years of Purgatory! Let us 
 have our idyl, dear, as my mother and father had 
 theirs even though it must be as brief as a 
 butterfly's existence, let us not deny ourselves 
 that much. I ask only one day ! 
 
 "You love me, Opal. I love you. You are, of 
 all the world of women, my chosen one, as I 
 no, don't shake your head, for you can't honestly 
 deny it am yours! We know we must soon 
 part forever. Won't it be easier for both of us 
 both, I say if for but one day, we can give to 
 each other all! Won't all our lives be better for 
 the memory of one perfect day ? Think, Opal to 
 take out of all eternity just a few hours and 
 yet out of those few hours may be born suffi- 
 cient courage for all the life to come! Don't 
 you see? Can't you? Oh, I can't argue I 
 
 256
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 can't reason! I only want you to be mine all 
 mine yes, if only for a few hours all mine!" 
 
 "Paul, you are mad," she began, but he would 
 not listen. 
 
 "Just one day," he pleaded "no yesterday, 
 and no to-morrow!" 
 
 He looked at her tenderly. 
 
 "Opal, it simply has to be it's Fate! If it 
 wasn't meant to be, why have we met here like 
 this? Do you think we two are mere toys in the 
 grip of circumstances? Or do you believe the 
 gods have crossed our paths again just to tanta- 
 lize us? Is that why we are here, Opal, you and 
 I together?" 
 
 "Why, I came to rest to see Lucerne! Most 
 tourists come to Lucerne! It's a pretty 
 place very!" she responded, lamely. 
 
 "Well, then, account for the rest of it. Why 
 did 7 come? and at the same time? and find 
 you here in my mother's room? Simply a coin- 
 cidence? Answer me that! Chance plays 
 strange freaks sometimes, I'll admit, but Fate is 
 a little more than mere chance. Why did I hear 
 your voice, that time? Why did I see you, and 
 
 257
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 follow? Why did we find ourselves so near akin 
 so strangely, so irresistibly drawn to each 
 other? Answer me, Opal! Why was it, if we 
 weren't created to be one?" 
 
 After a moment of waiting he said, "Listen to 
 the music, Opal! Only listen! Doesn't it re- 
 mind you of dreams and visions of fairyland, of 
 happiness, and love?" 
 
 But she could not answer. 
 
 At last she said slowly, "Oh, it's too late, Paul 
 too late!" 
 
 "Too late?" he echoed. "It's never too late 
 to take the good the gods send! Never, while 
 love lasts!" 
 
 "But the Count, Paul and your fiancee! 
 Think, Paul, think!" 
 
 "I can't think! What does the Count matter, 
 Opal! Nothing nothing makes any difference 
 when you are face to face with destiny and your 
 soul-mate calls! It has to be it has to be! 
 can't you won't you see it ?" 
 
 "God help all poor souls lost in the dark!" 
 She did see it. It stared her relentlessly in 
 the face and tugged mercilessly at her heart 
 
 258
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 with fingers of red-hot steel! She covered her 
 face with her hands, but she could not shut out 
 the terrible image of advancing Death that held 
 for her all the charm of a serpent's eye. She 
 struggled, as virgin woman has always strug- 
 gled. But in her heart she knew that she would 
 yield. What was her weak woman's nature after 
 all, when pitted against the strength of the man 
 she loved! 
 
 "Oh, I was feeling so pure so good so true 
 to-night! Are there not thousands of beauti- 
 ful women in the world who might be yours for 
 the asking? Could you not let the poor Count 
 have his wife and his honeymoon in peace?" 
 
 Honeymoon! She shuddered at the thought. 
 
 "Sweetheart," he whispered, "by every God- 
 made law of Nature you are mine mine mine! 
 What care we for the foolish, man-made conven- 
 tions of this or any other land? There is only 
 one law in the universe the divine right of the 
 individual to choose for himself his mate!" 
 
 Then his whisper became softer more enticing 
 more resistless in its passionate appeal. 
 
 He was pleading with his whole soul this 
 
 259
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 prince who with one word could command the 
 unquestioning obedience of a kingdom! But 
 the woman in his arms did not know that, and 
 it would have made no difference if she had. In 
 that supreme moment it was only man and 
 woman. 
 
 Opal gazed in amazement at this revelation of 
 a new Paul. How splendid he was! What a 
 king among all the men she knew! What a god 
 in his manhood's glory! a god to make the 
 hearts of better and wiser women than she ache 
 and break with longing! Her hand stole to 
 her heart to still the fury of its beating. 
 
 "Opal," he breathed, "I have wanted you ever 
 since that mad moment in gray old London 
 when I first caught the lure in your glorious 
 eyes do you remember, sweetheart? I know 
 you are mine and you know it girl! 
 
 His voice sank lower and lower, growing 
 more and more intense with suppressed passion. 
 Opal was held spellbound by the subtle charm of 
 his languorous eyes. She wanted to cry out, 
 but she could not speak she could not think 
 the spell of his fascination overpowered her. 
 
 260
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 She felt her eyes grow humid. Her heart 
 seemed to struggle upward, till it caught in her 
 throat like a huge lump of molten lead and 
 threatened to choke her with its wild, hot 
 pulsations. 
 
 "I love you, Opal! I love you! and I want 
 you! God! how I want you!" Paul stammered 
 on, with a catch in his boyish voice it made her 
 heart leap to hear. "I want your eyes, Opal 
 your hair your lips your glorious self! I want 
 you as man never wanted woman before!" 
 
 He paused, dazed by his own passion, mad- 
 dened by her lack of response blinded by a 
 mist of fire that made his senses swim and his 
 brain reel, and crazed by the throbbing of the 
 pulse that cried out from every vein in his body 
 with the world-old elemental call. Was she 
 going to close the gates of Paradise in his very- 
 face and in the very hour of his triumph rob him 
 of the one day his little day? 
 
 It was too much. 
 
 More overwhelmed by her lack of response than 
 by any words she could have uttered, Paul hesi- 
 
 261
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 tated. Then, speech failing him, half-dazed, he 
 stumbled toward the door. 
 
 "Paul! . . . Paul!" 
 
 He heard her call as one in dreamland catches 
 the far-off summons of earth's realities. He 
 turned. She stretched out her arms to him 
 those round, white arms. 
 
 "I understand you, Paul! I do understand.'' 
 She threw her arms around his neck and drew 
 his face down to hers. "Yes, I love you, Paul, I 
 love you! Do you hear, I love you! I am yours 
 utterly heart, mind, soul, and body! Don't 
 you know that I am yours?" 
 
 She was in his arms now, weeping strange, 
 hot tears of joy, her heart throbbing fiercely 
 against his own. 
 
 "Paul Paul I am mad, I think! we are 
 both mad, you and I!" 
 
 And as their lips at last met in one long, soul- 
 maddening kiss, and the intoxication of the 
 senses stole over them, she murmured in the 
 fullness of her surrender, "Take me! Crush me! 
 Kiss me ! My love my love !" 
 
 * * * * 
 
 262
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE morning dawned. The morning of 
 their one day. 
 
 Nature had done her best for them 
 and made it all that a May day should be. There 
 was not one tint, nor tone, nor bit of fragrance 
 lacking. Silver-throated birds flooded the world 
 with songs of love. The very air seemed full of 
 beauty and passion and the glory and joy of life 
 in the dawn of its fullness. 
 
 Their arrangements had been hasty, but com- 
 plete. Paul had stolen away from Lucerne in 
 the middle of the night, to be ready to welcome 
 his darling at the first break of the morning; 
 and it was at a delightfully early hour that they 
 met at the little hotel on the Burgenstock where 
 his mother's love-dream had waxed to its idyllic 
 perfection, one-and-twenty years ago. They sat 
 on the balcony and ate their simple breakfast, 
 looking down to where the reflection of the 
 
 263
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 snow-crowned mountains trembled in the limpid 
 lake. 
 
 Opal had never before looked so lovely, he 
 thought. She was gowned in the simplest fash- 
 ion in purest white, as a bride should be, her 
 glorious hair arranged in a loose, girlish knot, 
 while her lustrous eyes were cast down, shyly, 
 and her cheeks were flushed flushed with the 
 revelations and memories of the night just 
 passed flushed with the promise of the day just 
 dawning flushed with love, with slumbering, 
 smouldering passion with wifehood ! 
 
 How completely she was his when she had 
 once surrendered! 
 
 In their first kiss of greeting, they bridged 
 over, in one ecstatic moment, the hours of their 
 brief separation. When he finally withdrew his 
 lips from hers, with a deep sigh of momentary 
 satisfaction, she looked up into his eyes with 
 something of the old, capricious mischief 
 dancing in her own. 
 
 "Let us make the most of our day, darling, 
 our one day!" she said. "We must not waste * 
 single minute of it." 
 
 264
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Opal had stolen away from Lucerne and had 
 come up the mountain absolutely unattended. 
 She would share her secret with no one, she 
 said, and Paul had acquiesced. And now he took 
 her up in his arms as one would carry a little 
 child, and bore her off to the suite he had en- 
 gaged for them. What a bit of a thing she was 
 to wield such an influence over a man's whole 
 life! 
 
 A pert little French maid waited upon them. 
 She eyed with great favor the distingue young 
 monsieur, and his charmante epouse! There 
 was a knowing twinkle in her eye she had not 
 been a femme de chambre even a little while with- 
 out learning to scent a lune de miel! And this 
 promised to be especially piquante. But Paul 
 would have none of her, and she tripped away 
 disappointed of her coveted divertissement. 
 
 Paul was very jealous and exacting and even 
 domineering this morning, and would permit no 
 intrusion. He would take care of madame, he 
 had informed the girl, and when she had taken 
 herself away, he repeated it emphatically. Opal 
 was his little girl, he said, and he was going to 
 
 265
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 pet and coddle her himself. Femme de chambre 
 indeed! Wasn't he worth a dozen of the imper- 
 tinent French minxes! Wanted to coquette 
 with him, most likely thought he might be 
 ready to yawn over madame's charms! She 
 could keep her pretty ankles out of his sight 
 he wasn't interested in them! 
 
 How Paul thrilled at the touch of everything 
 Opal wore! Soft delicious things they were, 
 and he handled them with an awkward reverence 
 that brought tears to her eyes. They spoke a 
 strange, shy language of their own these little, 
 filmy bits of fine linen. 
 
 Oh, but it was good, thought Opal, to be 
 taken care of like this! to be on these familiar 
 terms with the Boy she loved to give him the 
 right to love her and do these little things, so 
 sacred in a woman's life. And to Paul it meant 
 more than even she guessed. It was such a new 
 world to him. He felt that he was treading on 
 holy ground, and, for the moment, was half- 
 afraid. 
 
 And thus began their one day the one day 
 
 266
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 that was to know no yesterday, and no to- 
 morrow! 
 
 They found it hard to remember that part of 
 it at all times. He would grow reminiscent for 
 
 an instant, and begin, "Do you remember " 
 
 and she would catch him up quickly with a whis- 
 pered, "No yesterday, Paul!" And again, it 
 would be his turn, for a troubled look would 
 cloud the joy of her eyes, and she would start to 
 
 say, "What shall I do " or "When I go to 
 
 Paris " and Paul would snatch her to his 
 
 heart and remind her that there was "No to- 
 morrow!" 
 
 All the forenoon she lay in his arms, crying 
 out with little inarticulate gurgles of joy under 
 his caresses, lavishing a whole lifetime's concen- 
 trated emotion upon him in a ferocity of pas- 
 sion that seemed quenchless. 
 
 And Paul was in the seventh heaven mad 
 with love! He was learning that there were 
 tones in that glorious voice that he had never 
 heard before, depths in those eyes that he had 
 never fathomed and those tones, those depths, 
 were all for him, for him alone aye, had been 
 
 267
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 waiting there through all eternity for his 
 awakening touch. 
 
 "Opal," he said, earnestly, "perhaps it was 
 here on this very spot, it may be, who knows 
 that my mother gave herself to my father! 
 
 But she could only smile at him through fast- 
 gathering tears strange tears of mingled joy 
 and wonder and pain. 
 
 And he covered her face, her neck, her shoul- 
 ders with burning kisses, and cried out in an 
 ecstasy of bliss, "Oh, my love ! My life !" 
 
 And thus the morning hours died away. 
 
 268
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 AND behold, it was noon! 
 The day and their love stood still 
 together. The glamour of the day, the 
 resistless force of their masterful love that 
 seemed to them so unlike all other loves of 
 which they had ever heard or dreamed, held 
 them in a transport of delight that could only 
 manifest itself in strange, bitter-sweet caresses, 
 in incoherent murmurings. 
 
 This, then, was love! Aye, this was Love! 
 
 The thoughts of the two returned with a 
 tender, persistent recollection to the love-tale of 
 the past the delicious idyl of love that had 
 given birth to this boy. Here, even here, had 
 been spent those three maddest and gladdest of 
 weeks that dream of an ideal love realized in 
 its fullness, as it is given to few to realize. 
 
 Yes, that was Love! 
 
 269
 
 It was youth eternal youth and fire, power 
 and passion. 
 
 It was May! Mayl 
 
 It was mid-afternoon before they awakened, 
 to look into each other's eyes with a new under- 
 standing. Surely never since the world began 
 had two souls loved each other as did these! 
 
 And what should they do with the afternoon? 
 Such a little while remained for them such a 
 little while! 
 
 Paul drew out his mother's letter, and to- 
 gether they read it, understanding now, as they 
 had not been able to understand before, its 
 whole wonderful significance. 
 
 When they read of the first dawn of the hope 
 of parentage in the hearts of these long-ago 
 lovers, their eyes met, heavy with the wistful- 
 ness of renunciation. That consolation, alas! 
 was not for them. Only the joy of loving could 
 ever be theirs. 
 
 And then, drawing out the other letters that 
 
 270
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 had accompanied his mother's, Paul revealed to 
 his darling the whole mystery of his identity. 
 
 At first she was startled almost appalled at 
 the thought that she had given herself to a Prince 
 of the Purple a real king of a real kingdom 
 and for a moment felt a strange awe of him. 
 
 But Paul, reading her unspoken thought in her 
 eyes, with that sweet clairvoyance that had always 
 existed between them, soothed and petted and 
 caressed her till the smiles returned to her face 
 and she nestled in his arms, once more happy and 
 content. 
 
 She was the queen of his soul, he told her, who- 
 ever might wear the crown and bear the title be- 
 fore the world. Then, very carefully, lest he 
 should wound her, he told her the whole story of 
 the Princess Elodie. 
 
 Opal moved across the room and stood drum- 
 ming idly by the long, open window. He watched 
 her anxiously. 
 
 "Paul, did you go to see her as you promised 
 and is she . . . pretty?" 
 
 "She is a cow!" 
 
 "Paul !" Opal laughed at his tone. 
 
 271
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Oh, but she is ! Fancy loving a cow !" 
 
 Opal's heart grew heavy with a great pity for 
 this poor, unfortunate royal lady who was to be 
 Paul's wife the mother of his children but nev- 
 er, never his Love ! 
 
 "But, Paul, you'll be good to her, won't you? 
 I know you will ! You couldn't be unkind to any 
 living thing." 
 
 And she ran into his arms, and clasped his neck 
 tight ! And the poor Princess Elodie was again 
 forgotten ! 
 
 "You Opal are my real rvife," Paul assured 
 her, "the one love of my soul, the mate the gods 
 have formed for me my own forever !" 
 
 Opal wept for pity of him, and for herself, but 
 she faced the future bravely. She would always 
 be his guiding star, to beckon him upward ! 
 
 "And, Opal, my darling," Paul went on, "I 
 promise you to live henceforth a life of which you 
 shall be proud. I will be brave and true and noble 
 and great and pure to prove my gratitude to the 
 gods for giving me this one day for giving me 
 you, dearest and your love your wonderful 
 love ! I will be worthy, dear I will ! I'll be your 
 
 272
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 knight your Launcelot and you shall be my 
 Guenevere! I will always wear your colors in 
 my heart, dear the red-brown of your hair, the 
 glorious hazel of your eyes, the flush of your soft 
 cheek, the rose of your sweet lips, the virgin 
 whiteness of your soul !" 
 
 Opal looked at him with eyes brimming with 
 pride. Young as he was, he was indeed every 
 inch a king. 
 
 And she had crowned him king of her heart 
 and soul and life before she had known! Oh, the 
 wonder of it! the strange, sweet wonder of it! 
 He, who might have loved and mated where he 
 would, had chosen her to be his love ! She could 
 not realize it. It was almost beyond belief, she 
 thought, that she plain little Opal Ledoux 
 could stir such a nature as his to such a depth as 
 she knew she had stirred it. 
 
 Ah, the gods had been good to her ! They had 
 sent her the Prince Charming, and he had wak- 
 ened her with his kiss that first kiss how well 
 she remembered it and how utterly she belonged 
 to him! 
 
 Then she remembered that, however much they 
 
 273
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 tried to deceive themselves, there was a to-mor- 
 row a to-morrow that would surely come a to- 
 morrow in which they would not belong to each 
 other at all. He would belong to the world. She 
 would belong to a 
 
 She sprang up at the recollection, and drew the 
 curtains of the window closer together. 
 
 "We will shut out the cold, inquisitive, prying 
 old world," she said. "It shall not look, shall not 
 listen! It is a hard, cruel world, my Paul. It 
 would say that I must not put my arms around 
 your neck like this must not lay my cheek 
 against yours so must not let my heart feel 
 the wild throbbing of yours and why ? Because 
 I do not wear your ring, Paul that's all !" 
 
 She held up her white hand for his inspection, 
 and surveyed it critically. 
 
 "See, Paul there is no glittering, golden fetter 
 to hold me to you with the power of an iron band, 
 and so I must not let you hold me to you at all !" 
 
 They both laughed merrily, and then Paul, pull- 
 ing her down on his knee and holding her face 
 against his own, whispered, "What care we for the 
 old world? It is as sad and mad and bad as we 
 
 274
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 are if we only knew! And who knows how 
 much worse? It has petty bickerings, damning 
 lies of spite and malice, trickery and thievery and 
 corruption on its conscience. Let the little peo- 
 ple of the world prate of their little things ! We 
 are free, dearest and we defy it, don't we? Our 
 ideals are never lost. And ideals are the life of 
 love. Is love a love like ours a murderer of 
 life?" 
 
 "Sometimes, Paul sometimes ! I fear it I do 
 fear it!" 
 
 "Never fear, Opal, my beloved ! You need not 
 fear anything anywhere! I will stand between 
 you and the world, dear between you and hell 
 itself ! My God, girl, how I love you ! Opal ! My 
 Opal ! My heart aches with the immensity of it ! 
 Come, my love, my queen, my treasure, come! 
 We have not many more hours to live! And I 
 want you close, close all mine! Ah, Opal, we 
 are masters of life and death! All earth, all 
 heaven, and hell itself, cannot take you from me 
 now!" 
 
 Oh, if some moments in life could only be eter- 
 nal! 
 
 275
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 AND the day died! 
 The sun sank beneath the western ho- 
 rizon; the moon cast her silvery sheen 
 over the weary world; the twinkling stars ap- 
 peared in the jewelled diadem of night; and the 
 silence of evening settled over mountain and lake 
 and swaying tree, while the two who had dared 
 all things for the sake of this one day, looked 
 into each other's eyes now with a sudden realiza- 
 tion of the end. 
 
 They had not allowed themselves once to think 
 of the hour of separation. 
 
 And now it was upon them! And they were 
 not ready to part. 
 
 "How do people say good-by forever, Paul? 
 people who love as we love? How do they say 
 it, dear? Tell me!" 
 
 "But it is not forever, Opal. Don't you know 
 
 277
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 that you will always be part of my life my soul- 
 life, which is the only true one its sanctifying 
 inspiration? You must not forget that never, 
 never !" 
 
 "No, I won't forget it, my King!" She de- 
 lighted in giving him his title now. "That satis- 
 faction I will hold to as long as I live !" 
 
 "But, Opal, am I never to see you? never? 
 Surely we may meet sometimes rarely, of course, 
 at long intervals, when life grows gray and 
 gloomy, and I am starving for one ray of the 
 sunshine of your smile?" 
 
 "It would be dangerous, Paul, for both of us !" 
 
 "But the world is only a little place after all, 
 beloved. We shall be thrown together again by 
 Fate as we have been this time." 
 
 Then she smiled at him archly. "Ah, Paul, I 
 know you so well! Your eyes are saying that 
 you will often manage to see me 'by chance' but 
 you must not, dear, you must not." 
 
 "Girl, I can never forget one word you have 
 tittered, one caress you have given one tone of 
 your voice one smile of your lips one glance of 
 your eye never, never in God's world!"
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 "Hold me closer, Paul, and teach me to be 
 brave!" 
 
 They clung together in an agony too poignant 
 for words, too mighty for tears ! And of the un- 
 utterable madness and anguish of those last bitter 
 kisses of farewell, no mortal pen can write ! 
 
 But theirs had been from the beginning a mad 
 love a mad, hopeless, fatal love and it could 
 bring neither of them happiness nor peace noth- 
 ing but the bitterness of eternal regret ! 
 
 And thus the day their one day of life came 
 to an end 1 
 
 That evening, from the hotel at Lucerne, two 
 telegrams flashed over the wires. One was ad- 
 dressed to the Count de Roannes, Paris, and read 
 as follows: 
 
 "Shall reach Paris Monday afternoon. Opal." 
 
 The other was addressed to Sir Paul Verdayne, 
 279
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 at Venice, and was not signed at all, saying 
 simply, 
 
 "A son awaits his father in Lucerne" 
 
 280
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THAT night a sudden storm swept across 
 Lucerne. 
 The thunder crashed like the boom of 
 a thousand cannon; like menacing blades the 
 lightning flashed its tongues of savage flame ; the 
 winds raved in relentless fury, rocking the giant 
 trees like straws in the majesty of their wrath. 
 Madness reigned in undisputed sovereignty, and 
 the earth cowered and trembled beneath the anger 
 of the threatening heavens. 
 
 Opal crouched in her bed, and buried her head 
 in the pillows. She had never before known the 
 meaning of fear, but now she was alone, and the 
 consciousness of guilt was upon her the acute 
 agony of their separation mingled with the de- 
 spairing prospect of a long, miserable loveless 
 yes, shameful life as the legal slave of a man she 
 abhorred. 
 
 281
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 She did not regret the one day she had given 
 to her lover. Whatever the cost, she would never, 
 never regret, she said to herself, for it had been 
 well worth any price that might be required of 
 her. She gloried in it, even now, while the storm 
 raged outside. 
 
 And the thunders crashed like the falling of 
 mighty rocks upon the roof over her head. Should 
 she summon Celeste, her maid? 
 
 Suddenly, as the tempest paused as if to catch 
 its breath, she heard footsteps in the corridor out- 
 side. It was very late who could be prowling 
 about at this hour? She listened intently, every 
 nerve and sense keenly alert. Nearer and nearer 
 the steps came, and then she remembered with a 
 start that in the excitement of her stealthy re- 
 turn to the hotel and the anguish and madness of 
 their parting, she had forgotten to fasten her 
 door. 
 
 There came a light tap on the panel. She did 
 not speak or move hardly breathed. Then the 
 door opened, noiselessly, cautiously, and he her 
 lover, her king entered, the dim light of her 
 room making his form, as it approached, appear 
 
 282
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 of even more than its usual majestic height and 
 power. 
 
 "Paul !" she whispered. 
 
 He seemed in a strange daze. Had the storm 
 gone to his head and driven him mad ? 
 
 "Yes, it is I," he said hoarsely. "It is Paul. 
 Don't cry out. See, I am calm !" and he laid his 
 hand on hers. It was burning with fever. "I 
 will not hurt you, Opal !" 
 
 Cry out? Hurt her? What did he mean ? She 
 had no thought of crying out. Of course he would 
 not hurt her her lover, her lord, her king ! Did 
 she not belong to him now ? 
 
 He sat down and took her hands in his. 
 
 "Opal," he muttered, "I've been thinking, think- 
 ing, thinking, till I feel half-mad yes, mad! 
 Dearest, I cannot give you up like this I cannot ! 
 Let you go to his arms you who have been mine ! 
 Oh, Opal, I've pictured it all to myself seen you 
 in his arms seen his lips on yours seen seen 
 Can't you imagine what it means to me? It's 
 more than I can stand, dearest ! I may be crazy 
 I believe I am but wouldn't it be better for you 
 
 283
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 and me to to cease forever this mockery of 
 life, and forget?" 
 
 She did not understand him. 
 
 "Forget?" she murmured, holding his hand 
 against her cheek, while her free arm pulled his 
 head down to hers. "Forget?" 
 
 He pressed his burning lips to her cool neck, 
 and then, after a moment, went on, "Yes, be- 
 loved, to forget. Think, Opal, think ! To forget 
 all ambition, all restlessness, all disappointment, 
 all longing for what can never be, all pain, all 
 suffering, all thought of responsibility or growth 
 or desire, all success or failure all life, all death 
 to forget! to forget! Ah, dearest, one must 
 have loved as we have loved, and lost as we have 
 lost, to wish to forget!" 
 
 "But there is no such respite for us, Paul. We 
 are not the sort who can put memory aside. To 
 live will be to remember!" 
 
 "Yes, that is it. To live is to remember. But 
 why should we live longer? We've lived a life- 
 time in one day, have we not, sweetheart ? What 
 more has life to give us ?" 
 
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 ONE DAY 
 
 He was calmer now, but it was the calmness 
 of determination. 
 
 "Let us die, dear let us die! Virginius slew 
 his daughter to save her honor. You are more 
 to me than a thousand daughters. You are my 
 wife, Opal! Opal, my very own!" 
 
 His eyes softened again, as the storm outside 
 lulled for a moment. 
 
 "My darling, don't be afraid ! I will save you 
 from him. I will keep you mine mine!" 
 
 The thunder crashed again, and again the fury 
 leaped to his eyes. He drew from his pocket a 
 curious foreign dagger, engraved with quaint de- 
 signs, and glittering with encrusted gold. Opal 
 recognized it at once. She had toyed with it the 
 day before, admiring the richness of its material 
 and workmanship. 
 
 "She has been mine my wife," he muttered 
 to himself, wildly, disconnectedly, yet with start- 
 ling distinctness. "She shall never, never lie in 
 his arms !" 
 
 He passed his hand across his eyes, as if to 
 brush away a veil. 
 
 "Oh, the red ! the red ! the red ! It's blood and
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 fire and hell! It glares in my eyes! It screams 
 in my ears ! Bidding me kill ! kill !" 
 
 He clasped her to him fiercely. 
 
 "To see you, after all this to see you go from 
 me and know you were going to him him 
 while I went . . . Oh, beloved ! beloved ! God 
 never meant that! Surely He never meant that 
 when He created us the creatures that we are !" 
 
 'She kissed his hot, quivering lips. She had 
 not loved him so much in all their one mad day 
 as she loved him now. 
 
 "Paul," she whispered, "beloved ! what would 
 you do?" 
 
 There was only a great wonder in her eyes, not 
 the faintest sign of fear. Even in his anguish 
 the Boy noticed that. 
 
 "What would I do ? Listen, Opal, my darling. 
 Don't you remember, you said it was not life but 
 death and I said it was both! And it is! it is! 
 I thought I was strong enough to brave hell! 
 Opal though you are betrothed to the Count de 
 Roannes you are my wife! And our wedding- 
 journey shall be eternal through stars, Opal, 
 and worlds far-off, glimmering worlds our 
 
 286
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 freed spirits together, always together togeth- 
 er!" 
 
 She watched him, fascinated, spell-bound. 
 
 ''Dear heart, Nature will not repulse us," Paul 
 continued. "She will gather us to her great, 
 warm, peaceful heart, beloved!" 
 
 Opal held him close to her breast, almost ma- 
 ternally, with a great longing to soothe and calm 
 his troubled spirit. 
 
 "Think," he continued, "of what my poor, un- 
 happy mother said was the cost of love 'Sorrow 
 and death!' We have had the sorrow, God 
 knows ! And now for death ! Kiss me, dearest, 
 dearest ! Kiss me for time and for eternity, Opal, 
 for in life and in death we can never part more !" 
 
 She kissed him obediently, solemnly and 
 then, holding her to him, drinking in all the love 
 that still shone for him in those eyes that had 
 driven him to desperation, he suddenly plunged 
 the little dagger to its hilt through her heart. 
 
 She did not cry out. She did not even shudder. 
 But looking at him with "the light that never 
 was on sea or land" in her still brilliant eyes, she 
 
 287
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 murmured, "In life and in death ... be- 
 loved! beloved!" 
 
 And while he whispered between his set lips, 
 "Sleep, my beloved, sleep," her little head dropped 
 back against his arm with a long, peaceful sigh. 
 
 He held her form tenderly to his heart, mur- 
 muring senseless, meaningless words of comfort 
 and love, like a mother crooning her babe to sleep. 
 And he still clasped her there till the new day 
 peeped through the blinds. And the storm raged 
 at intervals with all the ferocity of unspent pas- 
 sion. But his passion was over now, and he 
 laughed a savage laugh of triumph. 
 
 No one could take her from him now no one ! 
 His darling was his his wife in life and in 
 death! 
 
 He laid her down upon the bed and arranged 
 the blankets over her tenderly, hiding the hideous, 
 gaping wound, with its unceasing flow, carefully 
 from sight. He closed her eyes, kissing them as 
 he did so, and folded her little white hands to- 
 gether, and then he pulled out the disarranged 
 lace at her throat and smoothed it mechanically, 
 till it lay quite to his satisfaction. Opal was 
 
 288
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 so fastidious, he thought so particular about 
 these little niceties of dress. She would like 
 to look well when they found her dear Heaven ! 
 to-morrow ! 
 
 "No to-morrow !" he thought. They had spoken 
 more wisely than they knew. There would be no 
 to-morrow for her nor for him! 
 
 There was a tiny spot of blood upon the frill 
 of her sleeve, and he carefully turned it under, out 
 of sight. He looked at the ugly stains upon his 
 own garments with a thrill of satisfaction. She 
 was his! Was it not quite right and proper that 
 her blood should be upon him? 
 
 But even then, frenzied as he was, he had a 
 singular care for appearances, a curious regard 
 for detail, and busied himself in removing all 
 signs of his presence from her chamber all tell- 
 tale traces of the storm of passion that swept away 
 her life and his! He felt himself already but 
 the ghost of his former self, and laughed a weird, 
 half-mad laugh at the thought as it came to him. 
 
 He bent over her again. He would have given 
 much to have lain down beside her and slept his
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 last sleep in her cold, lifeless arms. But no ! Even 
 this was denied him ! 
 
 He wound a tress of her hair about his fingers, 
 and it clung and twined there as her white fingers 
 had been wont to twine. Oh, the pity of her still- 
 ness her silence who was never still nor silent 
 never indifferent to his presence! She looked 
 so like a sleeping child in her whiteness and tran- 
 quillity, her red-brown hair in disordered waves 
 about her head, her eyes closed in the last long 
 sleep. And he wept as he pressed his burning 
 lips to hers, so cold, so pitifully cold, and for the 
 first time unresponsive. Oh, God, unresponsive 
 forever ! 
 
 "Poor little girl !" he moaned, between sobs of 
 hopeless pain. "Poor little passionate girl ! . . . 
 Poor little tired Opal !" 
 
 And with a dry sob of unutterable anguish, he 
 picked up the dagger the cruel, kind little dag- 
 ger and crept to his own room. 
 
 The dagger was still wet with her blood. "Her 
 blood ! Oh, God ! her blood ! hers ! All mine 
 in life, and yet never so much mine as now mine 
 in death! all mine! mine! And she was not 
 
 290
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 afraid not the least afraid! Her eyes had 
 room only for her overwhelming love love just 
 love, no fear, even that hour when face to face 
 with the Great Mystery. And this was her blood 
 hers!" 
 
 He believed that she had been glad to die. He 
 believed oh, he was sure, that death in his arms 
 and from his hand had been sweeter than life 
 could have been with that wretch and always 
 without him her lover ! Yes, she had been glad 
 to die. She had been grateful for her escape! 
 And again the dagger drew his fascinated gaze 
 and wrung from his lips the cry, "Her blood 
 hers ! God in Heaven ! Her blood ! hers !" 
 
 He put his hand to his head with an inarticulate 
 cry of bewilderment. Then, with one supreme 
 effort, he began to stagger hastily but noiselessly 
 about the room. The servants of the house were 
 already astir, and the day would soon be here. 
 He put his sacred letters carefully away, and de- 
 stroyed all worthless papers, mechanically, but 
 still methodically. 
 
 Then he hastily scribbled a few lines, and laid 
 them beside his letters, for Verdayne would be 
 
 291
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 with him now in a few hours. His father yes, 
 his own father! How he would like to see him 
 once more just once more with the knowledge 
 of their relationship as a closer bond between them 
 to talk about his mother his beautiful, queenly 
 mother and her wonderful, wonderful love ! Yet 
 and he sighed as he thought of his deserted 
 kingdom after all, all in vain in vain ! It was 
 not to be all that glory that triumph! Fate 
 had willed differently. He was obeying the Law ! 
 
 And his mother would not fail to understand. 
 Verdayne must have loved his mother like this! 
 O God, Love was a fearful thing, he thought, 
 to wreck a life a terrible thing, even a hideous 
 thing but in spite of everything it was all that 
 was worth living for and dying for ! 
 
 The storm had spent its fury now, and only the 
 steady drip, drip of the rain reminded him of 
 the falling of tears. 
 
 "Opal!" he groaned, "Opal!" And he threw 
 himself upon the bed, clasping his dagger in un- 
 controllable agony. "O life is cruel, hard, bitter ! 
 I'll none of it ! we'll none of it, you and I !" His 
 voice grew triumphant in its raving. "It was 
 
 292
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 worth all the cost even the sorrow and death! 
 But the end has come ! Opal ! Opal ! I am coming, 
 sweet ! coming !" 
 
 And the dagger, still red with the blood of his 
 darling, found its unerring way to his own heart; 
 and Paul Zalenska forgot his dreams, his ambi- 
 tions, his love, his passion, and his despair in the 
 darkness and quiet of eternal sleep. 
 
 "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the 
 Lord." 
 
 293
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 SIR PAUL VERDAYNE reached Lucerne on 
 the afternoon of the next day. He was 
 as eager as a boy for the reunion with his 
 son. How he loved the Boy his Boy the 
 living embodiment of a love that seemed to him 
 greater than any other love the world had ever 
 known. 
 
 The storm had ceased and in the brilliancy of 
 the afternoon sunshine little trace of the fury of 
 the night could be seen. Nature smiled radiantly 
 through the tear-drops still glistening on tree 
 and shrub and flower, like some capricious 
 coquette defying the world to prove that she 
 had ever been sad. 
 
 To Sir Paul, the place was hallowed with 
 memories of his Queen, and his heart and soul 
 were full of her as he left the train. At the sta- 
 tion Vasili awaited him with the news of the 
 double tragedy that had horrified Lucerne. 
 
 In that moment, Sir Paul's heart broke. He 
 
 295
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 grasped at the faithful servitor for a support the 
 old man was scarce able to give. He looked up 
 into the pitying face, grown old and worn in the 
 service of the young King and his heart thrilled, 
 as it ever thrilled, at the sight of the long, cruel 
 scar he remembered so well the scar which the 
 Kalmuck had received in the service of his . 
 Queen, long years before. 
 
 Sir Paul loved Vasili for that loved him even 
 more for the service he had done the world when 
 he choked to death the royal murderer of his 
 Queen, on the fatal night of that tragedy so 
 cruelly alive in his memory. He looked again at 
 the scar on the swarthy face, and yet he knew it 
 was as nothing to the scar made in the old man's 
 heart that day. 
 
 In some way they never knew how they 
 managed to reach the scene of the tragedy, and 
 Sir Paul, at his urgent request, was left alone 
 with the body of his son. 
 
 Oh, God! Could he bear this last blow and 
 live? 
 
 After a time, when reason began to re-assert 
 itself, he searched and found the letters that had 
 
 296
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 told the Boy-king the story of his birth. Was 
 there no word at all for him his father? save 
 the brief telegram he had received the night 
 before? 
 
 Ah, yes! here was a note. His Boy had 
 thought of him, then, even at the last. He read 
 it eagerly. 
 
 "Father dear Father you who alone of all 
 the world can understand forgive and pity 
 your son who has found the cross too heavy 
 the crown too thorny to bear! I go to join 
 my unhappy mother across the river that men 
 call death and there together we shall await 
 the coming of the husband and father we could 
 neither of us claim in this miserable, gray old 
 world. Father Paul dearest and best and 
 truest of fathers, your Boy has learned with you 
 the cost of love, and has gladly paid the price 
 'sorrow and death !' " 
 
 He bent again over the cold form, he pushed 
 aside the clustering curls, and kissed again and 
 
 297
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 again, with all the fervor and pain of a lifetime's 
 repression, the white marble face of his son. 
 
 And a few words of that little note rang in his 
 ears unceasingly "dearest, and best, and truest 
 of fathers!" Truest of fathers! Ah, yes! The 
 Boy his Boy had understood ! 
 
 And the scalding tears came that were his one 
 salvation, for they washed away for a time some 
 of the deadly ache from his bereaved heart. 
 
 When the force of his outburst was spent, Sir 
 Paul Verdayne mastered himself resolutely. 
 There was much to be done. It was indeed a 
 double torture to find such an affliction here, of 
 all places under Heaven, but he told himself that 
 his Queen would have him brave and strong, 
 and master his grief as an English gentleman 
 should. And her wishes were still, as they had 
 ever been, the guide of his every thought and 
 action. 
 
 One thing he was determined upon. The 
 world must never know the truth. 
 
 298
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 To be sure, Sir Paul himself did not know the 
 secret of that one day. He could only surmise. 
 Even Vasili did not know. The Boy had 
 cleverly managed to have the day, as he had the 
 preceding one, "all to himself/' as he had in- 
 formed Vasili, and Opal had been equally skillful 
 in escaping the attendance of her maid. They 
 had left the hotel separately at night, in differ- 
 ent directions, returning separately at night. 
 Who was there to suspect that they had passed 
 the day together, or had even met each other at 
 all? Surely no one! 
 
 And what was there for the world to know, in 
 the mystery of their death? Nothing! They 
 were each found alone, stabbed to the heart, and 
 the dagger that had done the deed had not even 
 been withdrawn from the body of the Boy, 
 when they found him. Sir Paul and Vasili had 
 recognized it, but who would dare to insinuate 
 that the same dagger had drunk the blood of 
 the young American lady, or to say whose hand 
 had struck either blow? It was all a mystery, 
 and Sir Paul was determined that it should 
 remain so. 
 
 299
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 Money can accomplish anything, and though 
 all Europe rang with the story, no scandal nor 
 hint of it besmirched the fair fame of the un- 
 happy Boy and girl who had loved "not wisely, 
 but too well!" 
 
 There had, indeed, been for them, as they had 
 playfully said "No to-morrow!" 
 
 And Sir Paul Verdayne, kneeling by the bier, 
 with its trappings of a kingdom's mourning, 
 which hid beneath its rich adornment all the joy 
 that life for twenty years had held for him, felt 
 for the first time a sense of guilt, as he looked 
 back upon his past. 
 
 He did not regret his love. He could never 
 do that! Truly, a man and a woman had a 
 right to love and mate as they would, if the 
 consequences of their deeds rested only upon 
 their own heads. But to bring children into the 
 world, the fruit of such a union, to suffer and 
 die, "for the sins of the fathers," as his son had 
 suffered and died there was the sin a selfish, 
 unpardonable sin! "And thv wages of sin is 
 death." 
 
 He had never felt the truth before, He 
 
 300
 
 ONE DAY 
 
 had been so happy in his Boy, and so proud of 
 his future, that there had never been a question 
 in his mind. But now he was face to face with 
 the terrible consequences. 
 
 "Oh, God!" he cried, "truly my punishment 
 is just but it is greater than I can bear!" 
 
 And Paul Verdayne 'what of him ? Of 
 course you want to know. Read the segue/ 
 
 HIGH NOON 
 
 A powerful, stirring love-story of twenty years 
 after. Abounding in beautiful descriptions 
 and delicate pathos, this charming love idyl 
 will instantly appeal to the million and a 
 quarter people who have read and enjoyed 
 "Three Weeks." You can get this book 
 from your bookseller, or for $1.50, carriage 
 paid, from the publishers 
 
 The Macaulay Company, Publishers, 15 W. 38th St., New York 
 
 301