“It matters not where.  Suffice it is that she has gone.  Pembroke, you and I were very unfortunate fellows.  What earthly use have Princesses for you and me?  The little knowledge of court we have was gotten out of cheap books and newspaper articles.  To talk with Kings and Princesses it requires an innate etiquette which commoners cannot learn.  We are not to the manner born.  These Princesses are but candles; and now that we have singed our mothy wings, and are crippled so that we may not fly again, let us beware.  This may or may not be my last night on earth. . . .  Let us go to the opera.  Let us be original in all things.  I shall pay a prima donna to sing my requiem from the footlights—­before I am dead.”

“Jack!” cried Pembroke, anxiously.

“Oh, do not worry,” said I.  “I am only trying to laugh—­but I can’t!”

“Are you truly serious about going to the opera?” he asked.

“Yes.  Hurry and dress,” said I.

I leaned against the mantel and stared into the flickering tongues of flame.  A caprice?  I read the letter again, then threw it into the grate and watched the little darts of light devour it.  Now and then a word stood out boldly.  Finally the wind carried the brown ashes up the chimney, I would keep the other letter—­the one she had asked for—­and the withered rose till the earth passed over me.  She was a Princess; I was truly an adventurer, a feeble pawn on the chess-board.  What had I to do with Kings and bishops and knights?  The comedy was about to end—­perhaps with a tragedy.  I had spoken my few lines and was going behind the scenes out of which I had come.  As I waited for Pembroke the past two years went by as in a panorama.  I thought of the old lawyer and the thousand-dollar check; the night at the opera with Phyllis; the meeting of Hillars and his story.  “When there is nothing more to live for, it is time to die.”  If there was such a place as Elysium in the nether world, Hillars and I should talk it all over there.  It is pleasant to contemplate the fact that when we are dead we shall know “the reason why.”

“Come along,” said Pembroke, entering.

So we went to the opera.  They are full of wonderful scenes, these continental opera houses.  Here and there one sees the brilliant uniforms, blue and scarlet and brown, glittering with insignias and softened by furs.  Old men with sashes crossing the white bosoms of their linen dominate the boxes, and the beauty of woman is often lost in the sparkle of jewels.  And hovering over all is an oppressive fragrance.  Pembroke’s glasses were roving about.  Presently he touched my arm.

“In the upper proscenium,” he said.

It was Phyllis.  The Chancellor and the Grand Duke of S——­ were with her.

“We shall visit her during the first intermission,” said I.

“You had better go alone,” replied Pembroke.  “I haven’t the courage.”