much. It gives one, afterward,- there is a great deal of afterward in life, Miss Rosewarne,―an ideal with which to compare other things, and find them wanting. And if one absolutely must leave Paradise, 't is at least more bearable to be evicted by Eve-pardon me, it was her name, you know, a great while before it was yours-than to be chased out of it by the serpent. There was no serpent in my Eden!

Eva (with a little cynicism): Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen!

Alfred: Ah, you are right. Of course he was there, glittering with-orders of merit. Also, he waltzed like an angel of light-you told me so that evening at the Casino. But if you preferred Count von Waldberg to my humble self, you might at least have said so frankly. I would not have stood in the way of your happiness; and it would have spared me some examinations of conscience.

Eva (reproachfully): Seventeen, eighteen. Alfred: You were so good as to say that you liked me, and I believed it. Now, you have taught me to disbelieve; I only wish that I could doubt the sincerity with which, when you gave back my ring, you told me that you hated me.

Eva (deprecatingly, but coldly): Nineteen, twenty.

Alfred Mrs. Leclerc is looking at us. Say something kind to me-for her sake!

Eva (cheerfully): Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twentysix, twenty-seven, twenty-eight!

Alfred: A thousand thanks. She is quite satisfied that we are enjoying ourselves. Eva (with a shade of coquetry): Twentynine, thirty?

Alfred: Oh, immensely-no-yes-that is to say, not precisely. However, I mean to improve my opportunity, such as it is. For my own honor, it seems to me that I must say certain things, and I beg you to listen with patience. Are not you glad that we are to have Italian opera at the Academy this winter, instead of Wagner?

Eva (with astonishment): Thirty-one, thirtytwo, thirty-three!

Alfred: Major Starr was listening to us just then. Now he is talking again. The usual thing, I believe, is to say that because you have disappointed me I shall lose faith in all women. It won't have that effect with me, I fancy, though I should have liked to believe in you

too.

Eva (with bitterness): Thirty-four, thirtyfive, thirty-six.

Alfred: I think that neither you nor I can ever forget those evenings on the river: it will be a dainty aquarelle in your mind; in mine

the scene is an etching, every line inalterable. That sort of thing is bitten in with aqua fortis, you know. I should be glad to think that you too would remember- of course as a pretty idyllic landscape, nothing more-the yellowish light, half sunset, half moonrise; the dipping boughs of the willows; the shadows among the reeds, which crept farther and farther into the middle of the stream; the birds that called drowsily in their nests; a light which gleamed from a cottage window; and a stately white swan that floated past us upon the current. I remember telling you that that swan might be a sister of yours, under some enchantment. I too was under an enchantment that evening. I rather think it made me appear like a goose. On the whole, you need not remember that occasion, Miss Rosewarne!

Eva (sadly): Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one.

Alfred: And in the morning, as I waited on the cliff for you to appear, I understood how the earth waits for the dawn to illuminate it, to give it new life. Well, I have had my day; it was bright, but the sunset came too soon. Eva (dreamily): Forty-two, forty-three, forty-four.

Alfred: The sea sang of you, the waves sparkled for you, all the sirens had given their magic to you, and their harping must have been like the sound of the sea-wind in your hair.

Eva (with an effort at mockery): Forty-five, forty-six !

Alfred: Your criticism is deserved. My expressions do sound rather too lyric and highflown. It was, in fact, an extract from a semirhythmic ode, "To Her," which was to have been published-at my own expense.

Eva (sarcastically): Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty.

Alfred: I tell you all this now, because there is nothing else to be done with these poor little fancies of mine-bubbles of foam that gleamed for a moment, and broke. They were of no use to any one but the owner, and, good heavens! it is little they have availed even him! They will remain unpublished - also at my own expense.

Eva (tears a flower of her bouquet). Alfred: At least they may give you a moment's amusement.

Eva (with affected gaiety): Forty-seven, forty-eight!

Alfred: If you really think them so comic, let me go on. I dreamed of you - don't you like the present way of arranging the flowers low, so that one hasn't to peep this side and that of a mountain of roses ?

Eva (with enthusiasm): Forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four, fiftyfive, fifty-six!

Alfred: It is better to wake than to dream; but if one has no more pleasure in either-then best to sleep soundly.

Eva (puzzled, slightly alarmed): Seventythree, seventy-four, seventy-five?

Alfred: I mean, since one must exist,-there seems to be that necessity, in spite of the old Frenchman, that business is a rather good opiate. The palpitant voice of the ticker never records fluctuations of the heart, only of the stock-market. No shy loves seek to hide from observation in a corner of wheat. The bonds of Flint and Père Marquette are not those of tenderness and priestly blessing. As I said, I expect to sail in a few days for Europe; in any case, one of the firm would have to go there. Eva (with resignation): Seventy-six.

Alfred: I have tried again and again to retrace those parted ways, back to the path where, for a little while, we walked together. A dry and wearisome road it may have been for you. For me, as I have told you, it was the way of Paradise. I began to suspect the presence of the inconvenient third party of the legend of Eden at that Casino ball. You remember; the even ing when you wore a gown of some sort of cloth which had the tint of a blush-rose, adorably fit ted, hanging in smooth, heavy folds, trimmed with-trimmed with-well, I suppose it was tape

Eva (with horror): Seventy-seven !

Alfred How stupid of me! Of course it was n't tape. I used to be posted on the difference between tape and bombazine and lace and things in those other days when you were so good as to explain it to me. At all events, that was a delicious gown.

Eva (with conviction): Seventy-eight, seventy-nine.

Alfred: You had told me to come early to the Casino. I was n't fashionably late as it was, but should have been there a half-hour sooner only Jacky Vane, poor old chap, was ill, and wanted me to look in on him, on my way: said it would be a bracing tonic for him to see a man in evening clothes, going to have some fun. Great fun I was to have that evening!

For when I found you, your eyebrows were arched, and your lips compressed in a little way of yours. I knew that look; I had enjoyed it when it was caused by other men. I spoke to you, and your voice was menacingly sweet. You let me take your program of dances; the trail of the serpent-pardon me, I should say the autograph of Count von Waldberg-was over it all. Eva (deprecatingly): Eighty, eighty-one, eighty-two.

Alfred: I know that. It 's quite true that I had a poor little lancers, a quadrille, and the fag-end of a mazurka. But the waltz-our waltz, the "Garden of Sleep"-you danced with the Count.

Eva (protesting): Eighty-three, eighty-four, eighty-five.

Alfred: Of course he asked for it. But you have a thousand pretty ways of saying no. You could have kept that waltz for me.

Eva (timidly): Eighty-six, eighty-seven. Alfred: Well, let that pass. I suggested, as considerately as I knew how, that you were giving rather too many dances to Count von Waldberg. You replied that those numbers were at your disposal when he took your card, and you chose to give them to him.

Eva (poignantly): Eighty-eight!

Alfred (looking at her with sudden intelligence): Reserved! If I had understood that! Now I dare not even hint my thanks for what -I did not have.

--

Eva (with recovered composure): Eightynine, ninety.

Alfred: Is there anything more cruel than the sarcasm of a dance when one is unhappy? As we went to take our places in the lancers, your hand rested light and cold as a snowflake on my arm, without the delicate confiding touch that formerly made me thrill with a wild wish to tame the whole world so that you might drive it as you do your ponies; with an immense delight in which was also a bitter-sweet sense of my unworthiness of you. We stood side by side in the set; our vis-à-vis were a disillusioned couple, husband and wife, who danced together that evening so that the world should not guess that they were about to separate formally. At our right stood a pale girl, with the dissipated old millionaire to whom her mother-selling her like a dove in the temple

had married her. At our left, a woman whose thin little hands hook like bats' claws upon the edge of society, and who by various ways and means contrives to live upon gifts and a mild sort of blackmail; at her side was a young man, more wealthy than wary, who, they say, is paying a good deal for his fun. Among these cynical and deceived persons, we alone represented, to all appearances, happiness and confidence. I declare to you that not one of them

was so miserable as I. For one must have risen high in order to fall far. They had expected little, and got less. I, for a moment, had known perfect content. It is colder to be shut out than never to have entered. And what do you think of this imported notion of a Théâtre Libre? Eva (startled): Ninety-one, ninety-two, ninety-three!

Alfred: Pardon the abrupt change of subject. But Mrs. Leclerc had a very curious look on her face.

Eva (acquiescent): Ninety-four, ninety-five. Alfred: If Count von Waldberg pleased you, there was certainly no reason that you should not like him. He's a very good fellow, I believe, and he dances remarkably well. As my rival, he was ex officio hateful—not upon personal grounds. Moreover, he has gone back to his own country, and rather suddenly. I like that about him; it's a case where the absent is in the right. Then, too, I'm inclined to pity Von Waldberg; for one does n't, by his own will, lose his chances of waltzing with Miss Rosewarne. You must have given him leave of absence. I begin to feel for the Count as a brother in misfortune.

Eva (reprovingly): Ninety-six, ninety-seven. Alfred: I accept the reproof. I have no right to guess at what may have taken place between yourself and Count von Waldberg. It was impertinent, but decidedly agreeable, that surmise of mine.

Eva (with increased coldness): Ninetyeight.

Alfred: I'm always saying the wrong thing. You are very indulgent to let me talk so much. You sha'n't be annoyed this way again, if I can prevent it. Remember, I had not the least idea that we were to meet this evening.

Eva (drops her eyelids demurely).

Alfred (perceiving the possibility that she may have been better informed than he, conceals his satisfaction): But this time it seems to me I must speak — and then forever after be silent.

Eva (mockingly): Ninety-nine! Alfred: That's a quotation from - from - in fact something that I was interested, a while ago, to coach myself upon.

Eva (with marked indifference): One hundred.

Alfred: You have reached the hundred. And you are still angry, I'm afraid. It would be asking too much of your kindness-to Mrs. Leclerc—that you should count a second hundred. What can be done, then? (He pauses for a moment, then resumes:) Ah! if by chance it seems to you that you have said anything which you would rather have left unsaid, or said differently,— we all do that sometimes, you know, you could retract it by

counting that same hundred backward, down to nothing again. Isn't that a pretty good scheme? Eva (assenting): Ninety-nine.

Alfred: I think, with a little economy, you can make that double back-action hundred last until Mrs. Leclerc begins to "collect eyes" for the exit of the women. You can be epigrammatic, staccato, like the French novelists. When you lisp in numbers, they need n't come too many at once. I know your intonations so well that words are hardly needed to convey or conceal-your meaning. Eva Ninety-eight. Alfred: Quite so. Eva: Ninety-seven. Alfred: Perfectly. Eva: Ninety-six.

Eva (cannot help smiling).

Alfred (receiving her smile with impersonal gravity): Oh, this is a comedy that we are playing! But for me it is also a tragedy. A rather poor and ineffective one, it is true. I am thirty years old. I know that this is n't the end of all things. I shall probably live forty years more, make and lose on the Stock Exchange, go about like the others, smoke lots of cigars, play whist, settle down into a comfortable old club-man, and perhaps forget that pale pink gown trimmed with well, never mind the trimming. But just now it seems to me that my whole spirit is in revolution.

Eva: Ninety-three.

Alfred: Very much like "'93," as Victor Hugo has described it.

Eva: Ninety-two.

Alfred: I had built so many castles in air, and you were chatelaine of them all. Everything had a reason for existence, everything was good, as soon as your image took its place in my thoughts and harmonized them. For you, it seemed to me, I had been always existing; the things which I had done, or left undone,-and there were a great many of the latter sort of thing,- all appeared to have led me straight toward you. Now I'm saying it awkwardly enough! but my life has ceased to be logical; in fact, it has gone all to pieces. I shall pick up the pieces, of course,- I 'm not a whimpering boy,— and glue them, screw them, clamp them, tie them together, anyhow,