"How am I to live," he demanded, "away from the card-tables? What do you suppose my income is? A blank! It is worse than a blank, for I owe bills which I shall never pay. How am I going to live from day to day unless I go on the same infernal treadmill. I am an adventurer, I know," he went on, "but what is one to do who has the tastes and education of a gentleman, and not even money enough to buy a farm and work with one's hands for a living?"
The Princess moved to the window and back again.
"I, too, Nigel," she said, "have had shocks. Jeanne has come back. She has been at Salthouse all the time."
"It was probably she, then, who sent for De la Borne," Forrest said wearily.
"Perhaps so," the Princess assented, "but listen to this. It will surprise you. She came back and she told De Brensault in this room only a short while ago that her supposed fortune was a myth. De Brensault took it like a lamb. He wants to marry her still."
Forrest looked up in amazement.
"And will he?" he asked.
"Oh, I do not know!" the Princess answered. "Nigel, I am sick of life myself. There are times when everything you have been trying for seems not worth while, when even one's fundamental ideas come tottering down. Just now I feel as though every stone in the foundation of what has seemed to me to mean life, is rotten and insecure. I am tired of it. Shall I tell you what I feel like doing?"
"Yes!" he answered.
"I have a little house in Silesia, where I am still a great lady, half-a-dozen servants, perhaps, farms which bring in a trifle of money. I think I will go and live there. I think I will get up in the mornings as Jeanne does, and try to love my mountains, and go about amongst my people, and try to spell life with different letters. Come with me, Nigel. There is shooting and fishing there, and horses wild enough for even you to find pleasure in riding. We have tried many things in life. Let us make one last throw, and try the land of Arcady."