“Oh, you will take back what you said, and let me bring him to see you--won’t you, Sonia?” she said ardently. “We are going to have the apartment to ourselves for weeks, Harold and I; and we three could have such ideal times--such little dinners and jaunts to the play! As things are with you both, I think there is all the more reason for you to know each other. You could be such friends! I should think a real man friend would be such a comfort to you. You seem made for that sort of _camaraderie_, as well as for love. And what a comfort the friendship of such a woman as you would be to Harold! I feel myself at times so inadequate to him, and I have the very same feeling, sometimes, with you. I will confess to you, Sonia, that I did have a hope once, even though you are a princess and he just a simple American gentleman, that you and Harold might some time, after years, come to be something to each other; but I have given that up. I see that it is impossible to either of you. I had a talk with Harold yesterday, and he is as much protected by his past as you are by yours. So there could be no danger to either in such an intercourse. Oh, Sonia, _won’t_ you consent to it?” There was great gravity and deliberation in the tones of the princess as she answered impressively: “Now, Martha, listen to me. I want you to put that idea out of your head at once and forever. You will do this, I am sure, when I tell you how it distresses me and embarrasses our whole intercourse. You are quite mistaken in supposing that I have either a need or a desire for the friendship of any man alive. You really must believe me when I tell you that I am sick of men. One reason that I have so entirely given up society is that they fret me so with their offers of what you and they call friendship. I did have men friends once, and I know what they amount to. While I was married, my--I mean the man I married--was my friend. Since I lost him I have never had another.” As she ended, she rose and walked across the room. Her tone was so decided that Martha felt that she could say nothing more, and so, with a sigh, she gave up this dream too. In a moment the princess returned, bringing two photographs, which she had taken from a drawer. “I have been looking at some old pictures this morning,” she said. “This one was taken when, as a girl, I was presented at the English court.” She was silent while Martha was uttering her glowing words of praise, as she looked at the photograph of the beautiful young girl in her white court-dress with plumes and veil; and then she put the other into her hand, saying quietly: “This was taken in my wedding-dress, a few days after my marriage.” Her manner indicated a controlled excitement, but she was quite unprepared for the effect that this photograph had upon Martha. The girl fixed her eyes upon it with a sort of greedy delight, and while she drew in her breath with thick, short respirations, the hand that held the picture trembled.