"
"That fellow Anacreon was a fool," said Pembroke. "If the child of
Venus had been left then and there, what a lot of trouble might have
been averted! What do you say to this proposition; the north, the
bears and the wolves? I've a friend who owns a shooting box a few
miles across the border. There's bears and gray wolves galore. Eh?"
"I must get back to work," said I, but half-heartedly.
"To the devil with your work! Throw it over. You've got money; your
book is gaining you fame. What's a hundred dollars a week to you, and
jumping from one end of the continent to the other with only an hour's
notice?"
"I'll sleep on it."
"Good. I'll go to bed now, and you can have the hearth and the tobacco
to yourself."
"Good night," said I.
Yes, I wanted to be alone. But I did not smoke. I sat and stared into
the flickering flames in the grate. I had lost Gretchen. . . . To
hold a woman in your arms, the woman you love, to kiss her lips, and
then to lose her! Oh, I knew that she loved me, but she was a
Princess, and her word was given, and it could not be. The wind sang
mournfully over the sills of the window; thick snow whitened the panes;
there was a humming in the chimneys.
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