Three Weeks

"Dear one"--her voice fell softly into a note of intense earnestness--"while fate lets us be together--yes--living or dead--but if we must part, then either would be the cause of the death of the other by further seeking--never forget that, my beloved one. Listen"--her eyes took a sudden fierceness--"once I read your English book, 'The Lady and the Tiger.' You remember it, Paul? She must choose which she would give her lover to--death and the tiger, or to another and more beautiful woman. One was left, you understand, to decide the end one's self. It caused question at the moment; some were for one choice, some for the other--but for me there was never any hesitation. I would give you to a thousand tigers sooner than to another woman--just as I would give my life a thousand times for your life, my lover."

"Darling," said Paul, "and I for yours, my fierce, adorable Queen. But why should we speak of terrible things? Are we not happy today, and now, and have you not told me to live while we may?"

"Come!" she said, and they walked on down to the gondola again, and floated away out to the lagoon. But when they were there, far away from the world, she talked in a new strain of earnestness to Paul. He must promise to do something with his life--something useful and great in future years.

"You must not just drift, my Paul, like so many of your countrymen do. You must help to stem the tide of your nation's decadence, and be a strong man. For me, when I read now of England, it seems as if all the hereditary legislators--it is what you call your nobles, eh?--these men have for their motto, like Louis XV., Après moi le déluge--It will last my time. Paul, wherever I am, it will give me joy for you to be strong and great, sweetheart. I shall know then I have not loved just a beautiful shell, whose mind I was able to light for a time. That is a sadness, Paul, perhaps the greatest of all, to see a soul one has illuminated and awakened to the highest point gradually slipping back to a browsing sheep, to live for la chasse alone, and horses, and dogs, with each day no higher aim than its own mean pleasure. Ah, Paul!" she continued with sudden passion, "I would rather you were dead--dead and cold with me, than I should have to feel you were growing a rien du tout--a thing who will go down into nothingness, and be forgotten by men!"