"For Heaven's sake, what has happened to you?" she cried, throwing herself on Constantine's breast. "My life, my dearest, are you wounded? What is it?" And she kissed his bleeding lips. Over the monster's face dawned a sudden smile--a smile joyous as the aurora borealis, sad as the depths it was, but it transformed the Grand Duke's hideous face. It chased away his violence. The wild, rugged features became more harmonious; the brutal mouth endeavored to assume a gentle expression. "Nothing, nothing, my love!" he replied, in the voice of a lion caressing its mate. "Now, now, do not cry. Don't be frightened!"--his voice growing lower and lower. "There is nothing the matter." "Oh, but your lips are bleeding. Your tooth is broken." And she tried to stanch the blood with her handkerchief. "It is not broken clean out," growled Constantine. "Only the crown of it. And the devil take the crown!" "Why, your Highness," put in Galban, beginning to take part in the conversation, which had assumed so much milder a tone, "do you say, 'May the devil take the crown'?" "At present it is only the crown of my tooth that is under discussion," returned the Viceroy, emphatically, in somewhat trembling tones. "Go you to Araktseieff, Chevalier Galban, and rest awhile after the fatigues of the journey. We shall have time for our talk after dinner. Before I have eaten and drunk I am in no mood to talk over state matters. Do not spoil my appetite. _Zdravtvijtjé!_ And as for you, bring that good-for-nothing here as soon as he has come to himself. I will try a couple of good boxes on the ear to see if his teeth are set like mine. The scoundrel! If I had not been holding my pipe pretty firmly between my teeth the mouth-piece would have pierced through my jugular--" "Oh, don't!" stammered his wife, in superstitious dread, laying her trembling hands over the Grand Duke's mouth. He, pressing a kiss upon the palm of her outstretched hand, threw his arm round her waist, and she, nestling up to him, they retired to their inner apartments, leaving Chevalier Galban standing in the hall. "So you really would grieve if I were brought to you one day dead, run through the chest to my back?" "Oh, do not say such things!" exclaimed she, making the sign of the cross over the spot to which Constantine pointed. And to smother such fearful words she shut his mouth with a long, fervent kiss. "Child!" murmured the monster, and, taking his wife's head between his two hands, like a bear hugging the head of a lamb, he looked into her eyes. "Child! Does it not go against you to kiss my mouth? Do not the fumes of tobacco disgust you?" With an innocent glance, she answered: "I suppose every man's mouth emits the same smell of tobacco. I remember my father's did." At these words the monster pressed her with such force to himself as though he would stifle her in his embrace.