Princess Zara

"But, Zara, you must not talk so. I cannot listen."

"Then leave me. Go. I wish to be alone for a time before I return to

the salon. Deliver my message, and also the order I gave you."

I heard no more after that, but I knew that he had gone, although there

was no sound of his departure. Then I listened for the rustle of the

princess' dress when she should move away. Presently it came. She

sighed, then rose from the couch where she had been sitting, and I knew

that she had stepped out upon the path. I closed my eyes, the better to

think upon the remarkable revelations that had come to me as a result

of that conversation. One, two, five, perhaps ten minutes I remained

thus, turning the extraordinary incident over in my mind. But presently

I opened them again, lazily and slowly at first, and then with a sudden

start, for they encountered the form of the princess where she stood as

motionless as a statue but with one arm extended holding back a palm

leaf which half filled the entrance to my place of concealment.

God knows what impulse it was that had impelled her, in parting with

her recent companion, to pause at the Turkish bower in which I was

concealed, and so, to discover me. I had heard no sound whatever. I had

supposed that both were gone. The shock induced by the revelations I

had just overheard, the disillusionment I had experienced in regard to

Princess Zara, had affected me more than I realized, and the act of

closing my eyes and thinking it over had been the result of the same

impulse which sends a frightened woman to her own room, to close the

door behind her in order that she may be alone. By the act of closing

my eyes, I shut out the world by which I was surrounded--that world

which had now become so hateful to me because of the work I had to do.

But nevertheless I looked up steadily into the eyes of the princess,

wondering at the calmness and grace of her attitude, and amazed that

she should not show more consternation than she did, at the discovery

that there was a witness to her interview with the man Ivan. Save for a

suggestion of pallor which had driven away the natural flushes from her

cheeks, and perhaps for an added brightness, or rather a different

brightness, to her eyes, she was the same as ever, although the smile

which she now bestowed upon me seemed a bit constrained.

"You are not sleeping," she said, calmly, but with conviction. The

remark was not a question; it was a statement.

"No," I replied, as calmly.

"And have not been asleep?"

"No."