As I ate I thought how fortunate it was that there were so few servants. The only ones I had seen indoors were the butler and the sour-faced maid. There must have been a cook, and a very good one, hidden down stairs somewhere, but she, or he, was never visible. How, thought I, do these two manage to keep this great house in order? they are always working like galley slaves, I suppose, and Wilder pays them like princes; anyhow I am very glad, two are quite enough, almost two too many. Then I rose and placed the luncheon things on the floor out of my way, and then I took all the hairpins out of my hair and let it fall as it always wants to fall, right round my shoulders in black, curling locks. Then I undressed. I laughed as I put on the man's things, but my heart was fluttering fearfully lest they shouldn't fit. I shall never forget the perfume of rosemary from the amber satin doublet as I drew it on. Then the boots, how the spurs jingled; but I would not look at myself in the glass yet, I was not perfect, for the sword still lay on the bed, and the trumpet. I buckled the sword-belt and swung the trumpet behind me, then with one hand on the hilt of my sword and one hand on my hip I whirled round on my heel to face my image in the cheval glass. I can never tell you, nor could you ever imagine, the deep, the _furious_ pride that filled me as I gazed at the glorious-looking man who faced me in the mirror. Can you imagine an eagle condemned into being a sparrow; can you imagine the feelings of that eagle should it find itself once more an eagle royal and splendid? So great, so overmastering was this feeling, that I utterly forgot Geraldine and the whole world that held her. I was myself again, yet I was completely changed. All my waywardness and woman's pettinesses seemed vanished and drowned. As I looked at the cavalier with black flowing hair, I smiled, and he smiled. How gloomy and stern was that smile. What a graceful, and strange, and poetic-looking man he was; one could imagine him riding through a battle with his face unmoved, one could imagine him terrible in love. And he was _I_. Then I turned and threw myself into an arm-chair. Geraldine had just entered my mind, and the stern cavalier, who would have laughed in the face of a battle, became like a child. Do men turn weak like this before the image of their love? I veritably believe they do. "Geraldine," I thought, "she went out; ah, yes, this morning. I shall go to her when it is dusk. Will she smile, or will she frown, and my white rose will she wear it?" Then I found myself wondering what rose. I could not remember actually that I had given her a rose, yet a vague impression filled my mind that I had. Somewhere long ago I had given her a rose, and my fate seemed to depend on whether she would wear this rose, now, this evening.