She met Prince Girla in Paris, kept him on a tight rope for a year, and then married him. Her precedence was now assured, but she was disappointed when she discovered that in spite of Prince Girla’s connection with the ruling family of Roumania, the fact that he belonged to a younger branch (quite precluding succession) gave her much less social importance than she had expected. They both spoke French perfectly, so that language was no barrier between them. Prince Girla had heavy debts, but he was madly in love with Hermione. He would have shot himself if he had failed to win her, although it is improbable that he would have suggested marrying her if she had not been able to bring him a magnificent dowry. At nineteen there was only one thing that Hermione did not know about life—and that was marriage. She had spent much time and ingenuity upon the subject, but marriage is the one experience upon which no correlation of facts, however careful, has much practical bearing. It took Hermione three days of personal experience to understand married life, but it took her longer than this to teach her husband. Hermione said afterwards, to her greatest friends, that she was afraid she was not material enough for marriage. In the Roman Catholic Church marriage is accepted as one of the lesser sacraments, but if Hermione had been the Pope she would have altered this definition. Prince Girla did the best he could with a spiritual tie, but he had not been brought up on those principles, and he was very much in love. The whole affair was disastrous, and it was complicated by the birth of a boy within a year of the marriage. The Girla family took this as a sign of grace, and not as an omen of destruction. Their rejoicing was premature. Hermione went through her trial with an incredulous serenity. She could not believe that Providence really meant to play her such a trick, but when she found it had, she decided to make the occasion final. She would never have another child, nor did she mean to be inconvenienced by the one she possessed. Hermione did nothing to defy the marriage law; she would have thought it very wrong to defy a law as well as rather foolish when it could be so easily adapted to her convenience without defiance. She became seriously ill. No doctor could quite understand the cause of the Princess’s illness (its chief symptom was the enforced absence of her husband for two years), but of the fact itself there could be no reasonable doubt. Hermione barely ate enough to keep herself alive, she was as frail as a leaf, and suffered intensely, with heroic fortitude—but she chose her sufferings. At the end of two years Prince Girla had had enough of it, he still admired Hermione but he wanted a wife. He insisted upon an interview and he told her in fluent French with the extreme clarity of the Latin mind what he thought of her.