found that they had just lost a train which the other pleasure-seekers
had evidently availed themselves of. No matter; there was another train
an hour later; they could still linger for a few moments in the brief
sunset and then dine at the local restaurant before they left. They both
laughed at their forgetfulness, and then, without knowing why, suddenly
lapsed into silence. A faint wind blew in their faces and trilled the
thin leaves above their heads. Nothing else moved. The long windows
of the palace in that sunset light seemed to glisten again with the
incendiary fires of the Revolution, and then went out blankly and
abruptly. The two companions felt that they possessed the terrace and
all its memories as completely as the shadows who had lived and died
there.
"I am so glad we have had this day together," said the painter, with
a very conscious breaking of the silence, "for I am leaving Paris
to-morrow."
Helen raised her eyes quickly to his.
"For a few days only," he continued. "My Russian customers--perhaps I
ought to say my patrons--have given me a commission to make a study of
an old chateau which the princess lately bought."
A swift recollection of her fellow pupil's raillery regarding the
princess's possible attitude towards the painter came over her and gave
a strange artificiality to her response.
"I suppose you will enjoy it very much," she said dryly.
"No," he returned with the frankness that she had lacked. "I'd much
rather stay in Paris, but," he added with a faint smile, "it's a
question of money, and that is not to be despised. Yet I--I--somehow
feel that I am deserting you,--leaving you here all alone in Paris."
"I've been all alone for four years," she said, with a bitterness she
had never felt before, "and I suppose I'm accustomed to it."
Nevertheless she leaned a little forward, with her fawn-colored lashes
dropped over her eyes, which were bent upon the ground and the point
of the parasol she was holding with her little gloved hands between her
|