“He had perhaps grown weary of her,” said Gervase, speaking with an effort, and still studying the exquisite loveliness of the bewitching face that was so close to his own, like a man in a dream. At this she laughed, and laid her two hands on his shoulders with a close and clinging clasp which thrilled him strangely. “Ah, there is the difficulty!” she said. “What cure shall ever be found for love-weariness? Men are all like children--they tire of their toys; hence the frequent trouble and discomfort of marriage. They grow weary of the same face, the same caressing arms, the same faithful heart! You, for instance, would grow weary of me!” “I think not,” answered Gervase. And now the vague sense of uncertainty and pain which had distressed him passed away, leaving him fully self-possessed once more. “I think you are one of those exceptional women whom a man never grows weary of: like a Cleopatra, or any other old-world enchantress, you fascinate with a look, you fasten with a touch, and you have a singular freshness and wild attraction about you which makes you unlike any other of your sex. I know well enough that I shall never get the memory of you out of my brain; your face will haunt me till I die!” “And after death?” she queried, half-closing her eyes, and regarding him languorously through her silky black lashes. “Ah, _ma belle_, after that there is nothing to be done even in the way of love. _Tout est fini!_ Considering the brevity of life and the absolute certainty of death, I think that the men and women who are so foolish as to miss any opportunities of enjoyment while they are alive deserve more punishment than those who take all they can get, even in the line of what is called wickedness. Wickedness is a curious thing: it takes different shapes in different lands, and what is called ‘wicked’ here, is virtue in, let us say, the Fiji Islands. There is really no strict rule of conduct in the world, no fixed law of morality.” “There is honor!” said the Princess, slowly;--“A code which even savages recognize.” He was silent. For a moment he seemed to hesitate; but his indecision soon passed. His face flushed, and anon grew pale, as closing his arms more victoriously round the fair woman who just then appeared voluntarily to yield to his embrace, he bent down and whispered a few words in the tiny ear, white and delicate as a shell, which was half-hidden by the rich loose clusters of her luxuriant hair. She heard, and smiled; and her eyes flashed with a singular ferocity which he did not see, otherwise it might have startled him. “I will answer you to-morrow,” she said. “Be patient till then.” And as she spoke, she released herself determinedly from the clasp of his arms and withdrew to a little distance, looking at him with a fixed and searching scrutiny. “Do not preach patience to me!” he exclaimed with a laugh. “I never had that virtue, and I certainly cannot begin to cultivate it now.”