“The day is not fixed, but it will be before long. The trousseau is being bought now. Her fiancé is an Italian officer of very good family, though not much fortune. Still, Alice is happy, and mama is satisfied, and Harold has given his consent. He is coming over to the wedding. Oh, if you could see him--and he could see you!” “His seeing me is wholly unnecessary; but the other part might be accomplished. It would be a good idea to give me a card to the wedding if it takes place in a church. Then I could see all your people without their seeing me, and probably disapproving of our intimacy and breaking it up--or else putting it on a footing that would have no comfort in it.” “How _could_ they disapprove?” said Martha, deeply hurt. “How could they be anything but honored that I should be noticed at all by a great princess like you?” “Oh, there’s no greatness about this princess, child,” said the other, laughing. “Don’t expect to see me going around with a throne to sit on, in either a literal or a figurative sense. To you I am only Sonia--a fact which you seem to have forgotten, by the way! I wish you’d call me Sonia, and stop thinking about the princess. With your American ideas it, no doubt, seems much more important than it is. Are you going to tell your people about me really or not?” “No,” said Martha; “I wouldn’t for the world. It may be selfish, but I want you all to myself.” This was perfectly true; but at the same time, ignore it as she might, there was a lurking feeling in Martha’s heart that the princess was right in imagining that if her mother knew of the friendship that had sprung up between the two students at Etienne’s, she might insist upon investigating the princess--an indignity which Martha felt that she could not endure. The princess herself seemed pleased at Martha’s evident wish to monopolize her; and the two parted at last with the confidence and affection of old friends. IV THE days at the atelier had now a new interest for both students, and their work was manifestly the better for it. To Martha these days were filled with a glorious delight, which seemed to give her all that her nature craved; and if it had not been for sad thoughts of her brother and his loneliness, she would have felt that she could ask for nothing. To have the princess painting near her, and to be able to look up and see her beautiful figure, with its sinuous grace, posed before her easel, and to receive from her now and then a brilliant smile of mutual comprehension, was quite enough of personal bliss for Martha Keene.