Megara—­who sold her offspring to worse than death—­was living—­seemed eternal as evil itself.  It were a pious act to save Kaiserina from her as his father had tried to do with Iza.  He was pleased that she seemed inclined to cling to him as though wearied of the erratic life she seemed to have led after a flight from her mother’s, and which she did not describe minutely.  He was also grateful that, in her allusions to his father, she did not speak with the bitterness of a blood-avenger.

They made the journey to Paris without any stoppage.  He had to visit M. Ritz, for M. Rollinet was no longer there, having accepted a judgeship in Algeria.  In the vehicle, carrying to a hotel where he purposed leaving her, Felix said, feelingly: 

“I think I see why we were brought together.  I am not to lead the life of an artist, lounging in galleries, sketching ruins and pretty girls, but one of expiation for my poor father’s crime.”

“Perhaps.  More surely,” she replied with a smile which, on her peerless lips, seemed divine, “I should make the faults of the Dobronowskas be forgotten.”

They had arrived at the same conclusion as the journey ended, but the means had not occurred yet to either.

“Here we are,” he exclaimed, as the carriage horse came to a stop.

He alighted, entered the hotel and settled for the young lady’s stay.  Returning, he came to help her out.

“My door will never be closed to you,” she said, remembering how, in her story, her notorious ancestors had playfully suggested in a letter announcing her renunciation of her scheming mother’s toils and her return to marry Clemenceau, that he might leave his door on the jar for her at all instants.  “And yet, what will be the gain in our meeting again?”

“Everything for our souls, and materially!  Here in France, where La Belle Iza and the executed Clemenceau point a moral, neither of us can find a mate in marriage easily.  If blood stains me, shame is reflected on you.  Let us efface both blood and shame by an united effort!  Let our life in common force the world to look no farther than ourselves and see nothing of the disgrace beyond.”

“I do not care a fig for what people think or say,” said the one-night diva, with a curl of the lip.  “And I do not understand you fully.”

“Wait till I see you again, when all shall be made clear.  Meanwhile, cousin—­since without you I should have lost my life, or, certainly my liberty—­I am eternally bound to you.  It is left to you to have the bonds solemnized in the church, here, in France—­my country!”

CHAPTER X.

THE FOX IN THE FOLD.