when they are married, are always glad to get away from one another; they are always flirting with other people. But I should be miserable if I thought it would ever be like that with Piero and me. I worship his very shadow, and he does--or he did--worship mine. Why should that change? Why should it not go on forever, as it does in poems? If it can't, why doesn't one die? * * * * * _From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, St. Petersburg, to the Princess di San Zenone, Coombe-Bysset._ What a goose you are, you dearest Gladys! You were always like that. To all you have said I can only reply, "_connu_." When girls are romantic--and you always were, though it was quite gone out ages before our time--they always expect husbands to remain lovers. Now, my pet, you might just as well expect hay to remain grass. Papa was quite right. When there is such a lot of steam on, it must go off by degrees. I am afraid, too, you have begun with the passion, and the rapture, and the mutual adoration, and all the rest of it, which is _quite, quite gone out_. People don't feel in that sort of way nowadays. Nobody cares much: a sort of good-humored liking is the utmost one sees. But you were always such a goose! And now you must marry an Italian, and expect it all to be balconies, and guitars, and moonlight, for ever and ever. I think it quite natural he should want to get to Paris. You should never have taken him to Coombe. I do remember the rose-gardens, and the lime-avenues, and the ruins; and I remember being sent down there when I had too strong a flirtation with Philip Rous, who was in F. O. and had nothing a year. You were a baby then, and I remember that I was bored to the very brink of suicide: I have detested the smell of a lime-tree ever since. I can sympathize with the prince if he longs to get away. There can't be anything for him to do all day long except smoke. The photo of him is wonderfully handsome; but can you live all your life, my dear, on a profile? * * * * * _From the Princess di San Zenone, Coombe-Bysset, to the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, St. Petersburg._