“Thank you. I have often noticed that one’s friends like one best as one is leaving them. Then, Maximilian, shall I divorce you?” “If you please, dear. My lawyers are Messrs. Onward & Christian. They will arrange the matter with yours in the usual way.” “Remember, dear, that your King will not receive a divorced Duke at court.” “The King can do no wrong,” yawned the Duke. “It must be rather hard on him sometimes, but the law is the law.” His eyes were closed against her beauty, else he had seen the sudden smile that touched her beauty, touched it and was going, going, lurked a while in the depths of her eyes like a very small bird in the ferns of love-in-the-mist, and lo! was gone. She said softly: “You are such a baby, Max!” Seamen passed by, bearing a great leather Innovation trunk to the side. A black cloud rose up from Africa and hid the sun. A shadow walked across the pretty town of Cannes and drove the youth from painted faces. “And because,” said the young Duchess wistfully, “you are such a baby, I don’t put it beyond you to make love to my sister if you should meet her. She has always been jealous of me, so she would enjoy nothing so much as your making love to her. Promise not to, Max, please, oh, please! She has just come over to Paris, so I read this morning in _The New York Herald_. Max, promise not to make a fool of me to my own sister!” “She’s pretty?” “Pretty? Are words so scarce, sir, that you must use a copper coin? And she my twin!” “Ah me! Oh dear!” Her voice scarce disturbed the silence of the yacht: “Good-bye, Duke Maximilian. Our lives go different ways. I do wish you success, happiness, health. Good-bye.” As he lay, with closed eyes, his fingers found her hand and raised it to his lips. “Good-bye,” said he. Such was his farewell. She looked back from the side. He lay silent. She said: “Courtesy, Maximilian?” A sea-bird mocked the silence. The cloud athwart the sun was now as large as half the world. The Duchess of Mall said: “Chivalry, Maximilian?” The sea-bird screamed and flew away, and Leonora of Mall cried: “I will forgive you all things but your farewell, Maximilian. The very birds are appalled to see chivalry so low in a man that he will take his lady’s _adieu_ lying down.” Her maid, hatted and veiled for travelling, whispered to her ear: “Your Grace, he is asleep.” III It is a sorry business to enquire into what men think, when we are every day only too uncomfortably confronted with what they do. Moreover, the science of psychology--for that is what we are talking about--is as yet but a _demoiselle_ among the sciences; and that writer carries the least conviction who tries to wind his tale about her immature coils. Therefore we will not enquire into the young Duke’s thoughts, but merely relate his actions: we will leave his psychology to the fishes of the tideless sea, while we let him confront us with all his vanity.