“I hope there is a special hell reserved for parents who ruin their daughters’ lives to suit their own ambition,” said Paul, with a sudden concentrated heat which rather startled his hearer.

This man was full of surprises for Etta Sydney Bamborough.  It was like playing with fire—­a form of amusement which will be popular as long as feminine curiosity shall last.

“You are rather shocking,” she said lightly.  “But it is all over now, so we need not dig up old grievances.  Only I want you to understand that that photograph represents a part of my life which was only painful—­nothing else.”

Paul, standing in front of her, looked down thoughtfully at the beautiful upturned face.  His hands were clasped behind him, his firm mouth set sternly beneath the great fair mustache.  In Russia the men have good eyes—­blue, fierce, intelligent.  Such eyes had the son of the Princess Alexis.  There was something in Etta Bamborough that stirred up within him a quality which men are slowly losing—­namely, chivalry.  Steinmetz held that this man was quixotic, and what Steinmetz said was usually worth some small attention.  Whatever faults that poor knight of La Mancha who has been the laughing-stock of the world these many centuries—­whatever faults or foolishness may have been his, he was at all events a gentleman.

Paul’s instinct was to pity this woman for the past that had been hers; his desire was to help her and protect her, to watch over her and fight her battles for her.  It was what is called Love.  But there is no word in any spoken language that covers so wide a field.  Every day and all day we call many things love which are not love.  The real thing is as rare as genius, but we usually fail to recognize its rarity.  We misuse the word, for we fail to draw the necessary distinctions.  We fail to recognize the plain and simple truth that many of us are not able to love—­just as there are many who are not able to play the piano or to sing.  We raise up our voices and make a sound, but it is not singing.  We marry and we give in marriage, but it is not loving.  Love is like a color—­say, blue.  There are a thousand shades of blue, and the outer shades are at last not blue at all, but green or purple.  So in love there are a thousand shades, and very, very few of them are worthy of the name.

That which Paul Howard Alexis felt at this time for Etta was merely the chivalrous instinct that teaches men their primary duty toward women—­namely, to protect and respect them.  But out of this instinct grows the better thing—­Love.

There are some women whose desire it is to be all things to all men instead of every thing to one.  This was the stumbling-block in the way of Etta Bamborough.  It was her instinct to please all at any price, and her obedience to such instinct was often unconscious.  She hardly knew perhaps that she was trading upon a sense of chivalry rare in these days, but had she known she could not have traded with a keener comprehension of the commerce.