“I do understand,” she said quietly, meeting his gaze with a directness that hurt him sorely.  “And you, too, understand.  I could not be your wife.  I am glad yet sorry that you love me, and I am proud to have heard you say that you want me.  But I am a sensible creature, Mr. Chase, and, being sensible, am therefore selfish.  I have seen women of my unhappy station venture out side of their narrow confines in the search for life-long joy with men who might have been kings had they no been born under happier stars—­men of the great wide world instead of the soulless, heartless patch which such as I call a realm.  Not one in a hundred of those women found the happiness they were so sure of grasping just outside their prison walls.  It was not in the blood.  We are the embodiment of convention, the product of tradition.  Time has proved in nearly every instance that we cannot step from the path our prejudices know.  We must marry and live and die in the sphere to which we were born.  It must sound very bald to you, but the fact remains, just the same.  We must go through life unloved and uncherished, bringing princes into the world, seeing happiness and love just beyond our reach all the time.  We have hearts and we have blood in our veins, as you say, and we may love, too, but believe me, dear friend, we are bound by chains no force can break—­the chains of prejudice.”

She had withdrawn her hands from his; he was standing before her as calm and unmoved as a statue.

“I understand all of that,” he said, a faint smile moving his lips.  She was not expecting such resignation as this.

“I am glad that you—­that you understand,” she said.

“Just the same,” he went on gently, “you love me as I love you.  You kissed me.  I could feel love in you then.  I can see it in you now.  Perhaps you are right in what you say about not finding happiness outside the walls, but I doubt it, Genevra.  You will marry Prince Karl in June, and all the rest of your life will be bleak December.  You will never forget this month of March—­our month.”  He paused for a moment to look deeply into her incredulous eyes.  His face writhed in sudden pain.  Then he burst forth with a vehemence that startled her.  “My God, I pity you with all my soul!  All your life!”

“Don’t pity me!” she cried fiercely.  “I cannot endure that!”

“Forgive me!  I shouldn’t say such things to you.  It’s as if I were bullying you,”

“You must not think of me as unhappy—­ever.  Go on your own way, Hollingsworth Chase, and forget that you have known me. You will find happiness with some one else.  You have loved before; you can and will love again.  I—–­ I have never loved before—­but perhaps, like you, I shall love again.  You will love again?” she demanded, her lip trembling with an irresolution she could not control.

“Yes,” he said calmly, “I’ll love the wife of Karl Brabetz.”  His eyes swept hungrily over the golden bronze hair; then he turned away with the short, hard laugh of the man who scoffs at his own despair.  She started violently; her cheek went red and white and her eyes widened as though they were looking upon something unpleasant; her thoughts went back to the naive prophecy in the treasure chamber.