I reflected. It was a peculiar mission, and, moreover, one in which failure would be such a crushing blow to vanity, that my only refuge would be a convent. What if I set myself to fascinate a man and—failed! Yet there was such a glamour of excitement with it. To match myself against this adventuress, to fight for a man's honor, to triumph for the right. All men's eyes confessed me beautiful. Impartially I had scanned myself, posed as my harshest critic—and a woman can be her own severest critic if she will—and I too had finished by saying, however reluctantly, "Yes, ma chère, you really are rather pretty." There was something exhilarating in the thought that here was the opportunity to prove myself right or wrong, and men truthful or mere flatterers.

"I consent," I cried, "on two conditions: that, success or failure, Prince Humbert does not meet me in my character study, and that I am allowed absolute freedom of action, whatever course I take."

"Agreed on all things, and I thank you."

We rose, and I placed my hand upon his arm. "Modesty is woman's sweetest charm," he remarked, and I gazed into his face, vainly striving to fathom the meaning of an observation so apropos of nothing. "Why mention failure?" he continued, and we returned to the ballroom.

The Woods of Lecrese, bathed in the glowing fire of an audacious sunset, were enough to awaken sentimental yearnings in the breast of one even more worldly than I. A long, undulating road swept far into the purple distance, losing itself among the trees that interlaced above; on either side a cool vista of virgin greensward spread from the carriage-drive, only relieved by the crimson splashes of the fallen leaves that foretold the coming autumn, and yet not so severely as to make one dread the winter. All was solitude and peace. A dangerous hour, and a dangerous place, I told myself, for a foolish youth and a designing woman.

I stopped the carriage, and stepped out on to the roadway.

"Knock out the axle-pin," I cried, "and throw it into that thicket; then take a horse each, and ride for assistance."

I spoke in the same tone as I might have ordered my coffee, but who, save my own servants, would have carried out such inane orders without an implied protest? "Go to the blacksmith in the first village you come to."

So they left me, and I, like the lost princess of a fairy-tale, stood by my broken-down carriage, and awaited the Prince, for I knew he must ride this way, and it pleased me that we thus should meet.