“I will be what you will, my Princess,” he said.

At that moment he could not say more.  For the first time in his life he was mute in a woman’s presence; and the reason was that for the first time in his life love for a woman had gripped his heart.

She rose and smiled at him.  “Bons amis, francs et loyaux?”

“Francs et loyaux.”

She gave him her hand in friendship; but she gave him her eyes in love.  It is the foolish way of women.

“May a frank and loyal friend write to you sometimes?” he asked.

“Why, yes.  And a frank and loyal friend will answer.”

“And when shall I see you again?”

“Did I not tell you,” she said, moving to the bell, for this was leave-taking—­“that I shall be in Venice at Easter?”

Paul went out into the frosty air, and the bright wintry stars shone down on him.  Often on such nights he had looked up, wondering which was his star, the star that guided his destiny.  But to-night no such fancy crossed his mind.  He did not think of the stars.  He did not think of his destiny.  His mind and soul were drenched in thought of one woman.  It had come at last, the great passion, the infinite desire.  It had come in a moment, wakened into quivering being by the caressive notes of the dear French voice—­“mais je suis jeune, et mon coeur est gueri, et il lui manque affreusement de la foi, de la tendresse, de—­de”—­adorable catch of emotion—­“de l’amitie.”  Friendship, indeed!  For amitie all but her lips said amour.  He walked beneath the wintry stars, a man in a perfect dream.

Till then she had been but his Princess, the exquisite lady whom it had amused to wander with him into the pays du tendre.  She had been as far above him as the now disregarded stars.  She had come down with a carnival domino over her sidereal raiment, and had met him on carnival equality.  He beau masque!  He, knowing her, had fallen beneath her starry spell.  He was Paul Kegworthy, Paul Savelli, what you like; Paul the adventurer, Paul the man born to great things.  She was a beautiful woman, bearing the title of Princess, the title that had haunted his life since first the Vision Splendid dawned upon him as he lay on his stomach eavesdropping and heard the words of the divinely-smelling goddess who had given him his talisman, the cornelian heart.  To “rank himself with princes” had been the intense meaning of his life since ragged and fiercely imaginative childhood.  Odd circumstances had ranked him with Sophie Zobraska.  The mere romance of it had carried him off his feet.  She was a princess.  She was charming.  She frankly liked his society.  She seemed interested in his adventurous career.  She was romantic.  He too.  She was his Egeria.  He had worshipped her romantically, in a mediaeval, Italian way, and she had accepted the homage.  It had all been deliciously artificial.  It had all been Mademoiselle de Scudery.  But to-day the real woman, casting off her carnival