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 drawing near. He knew that she was waiting for him and had just entered the drawing-room near by, to watch for him.

"No," she cried, seeing him enter, "things cannot go on in this way!" And at the sound of her own voice, her eyes filled with tears. "If this is going on this way, it would be far better if it had ended long ago!"

"What is the matter, my friend?"

"The matter! I have been waiting in torture for two hours; but no, I do not want to quarrel with you. .... Of course you could not come. No, I will not scold you any more."

She put her two hands on his shoulders, and looked at him long, with her eyes deep and tender, although searching. She studied his face for all the time that she had not seen him. As always happened every time they met, she tried to compare her imaginary presentment of him—it was incomparably better because it was impossible in reality—with him as he really was.

CHAPTER III

" you meet him?" she asked, when they were seated under the lamp by the drawing-room table. "That is your punishment for coming so late."

"Yes; how did it happen? Should he not have been at the council?"

"He went there, but he came back again, and now he has gone off somewhere again. But that is no matter; let us talk no more about it; where have you been? All this time with the prince?"

She knew the most minute details of his life.

He wanted to reply that as he had no rest the night before, he allowed himself to oversleep; but the sight of her happy, excited face, made this acknowledgment difficult, and he excused himself on the plea of having been obliged to go and present his report about the prince's departure.

"It is over now, is it? Has he gone?"