“But it was I who did not understand,” she said, looking at the rings on her fingers.  “Yes.  You are right.  I was wounded—­like an animal, I hid myself in the country, and I hoped you would write, which was foolish, for I knew you wouldn’t.  Then I felt that if I had loved you as I ought, I should never have gone away.”

“I thought it best to kill your love outright,” said Paul.

She lay back on her cushions, very fair, very alluring, very sad.  From where he sat he saw her face in its delicate profile, and he had a mighty temptation to throw himself on his knees by her side.

“I thought, too, you had killed it,” she said.

“Still think so,” said Paul, in a low voice.

She raised herself, bent forward, and he met the blue depths of her gaze.  “And you?  Your love?”

“I never did anything to kill it.”

“But I did.”

“No, you couldn’t.  I shall love you to the hour of my death.”  He saw the light leap into her eyes.  “I only say it,” he added somewhat coldly, “because I will lie to you no longer.  But it’s a matter that concerns me alone.”

“How you alone?  Am not I to be considered?”

He rose and stood on the hearthrug, facing her.  “I consider you all the time,” said he.

“Listen, mon cher ami,” she said, looking up at him.  “Let us understand one another.  Is there anything about you, your birth or your life that I still don’t know—­I mean, anything essential?”

“Nothing that matters,” said Paul.

“Then let us speak once and for all, soul to soul.  You and I are of those who can do it.  Eh bien.  I am a woman of old family, princely rank and fortune—­you—­”

“By my father’s death,” said Paul, for the second time that day, “I am a rich man.  We can leave out the question of fortune—­except that the money I inherit was made out of a fried-fish shop business.  That business was conducted by my father on lines of peculiar idealism.  It will be my duty to carry on his work—­at least”—­he inwardly and conscientiously repudiated the idea of buying fish at Billingsgate at five o’clock in the morning—­“as far as the maintenance of his principles is concerned.”

“Soit,” said the Princess, “we leave out the question of fortune.  You are then a man of humble birth, and the rank you have gained for yourself.”

“I am a man of no name and of tarnished reputation.  Good God!” he blazed out suddenly, losing control.  “What is the good of torturing ourselves like this?  If I wouldn’t marry you—­before—­until I had done something in the front of the world to make you proud of me, what do you think I’ll do now, lying in the gutter for every one to kick me?  Would it be to the happiness of either of us for me to sneak through society behind your rank?  It would be the death of me and you would come to hate me as a mean hound.”