It is
myself whom I pity. I have a home, Prince, and a husband. I
want them both."
"You amaze me," the Prince said slowly. "Lucille, indeed, you
amaze me. You have been buried alive for three years. Positively
we believed that our summons would sound to you like a message from
Heaven."
Lucille was silent for a moment. She rubbed the mist from the
carriage window and looked out into the streets.
"Well," she said, "I hope that you realise now how completely you
have misunderstood me. I was perfectly happy in America. I have
been perfectly miserable here. I suppose that I have grown too old
for intrigues and adventures."
"Too old, Lucille," the Prince murmured, leaning a little towards
her. "Lucille, you are the most beautiful woman in London. Many
others may have told you so, but there is no one, Lucille, who is
so devotedly, so hopelessly your slave as I."
She drew her hand away, and sat back in her corner. The man's hot
breath fell upon her cheek, his eyes seemed almost phosphorescent
in the darkness. Lucille could scarcely keep the biting words from
her tongue.
"You do not answer me, Lucille. You do not speak even a single
kind word to me. Come! Surely we are old friends. We should
understand one another. It is not a great deal that I ask from
your kindness--not a great deal to you, but it is all the
difference between happiness and misery for me.
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