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Updated: May 21, 2025
And then there were the nights, the miserable evenings and nights of separation. On the Sunday she had departed to Venice, and after she had gone, Paul had returned for one day to Lucerne, leaving again on the Monday, apparently as unacquainted with Madame Zalenska as he had been the first night of his arrival. He had not seen her since Saturday. Three whole days of anguishing longing.
The inevitable had happened. How the remainder of the evening passed, Paul Zalenska never knew. As he looked back upon it, during the months that followed, it seemed like some hideous dream from which he was struggling to awake. He talked, he smiled, he even laughed, but scarcely of his own volition; it was as though another personality acted through him.
The simplest thing to do seemed to descend into the hall and look at the Visitors' List, which he promptly did. There were only a few people in the hotel; it was not hard, therefore, guessing at the numbers of the rooms, to arrive at the conviction that "Mme. Zalenska and suite" might be what he was searching for. Zalenska she was possibly Russian after all. And what was her christian name?
Known to London society as Monsieur Zalenska, the Prince had come up to town with the Verdaynes, and was apparently enjoying to the utmost the frivolities of London life.
When two are young, and at sea, and in love, and the world is beautiful and bright, it is joyous and wonderful to drift thoughtlessly with the tide, and rise and fall with the waves. Thus Paul Zalenska and Opal Ledoux spent that most delightful of voyages on the Lusitania. They were not often alone. They did not need to be.
Paul Zalenska rose hastily at her entrance and though she made many attempts to avoid his gaze she was forced at last to meet it. The electric spark of understanding flashed from eye to eye, and both thrilled in answer to its magnetic call. In the glance that passed between them was lurking the memory of a kiss. Opal blushed faintly. How dare he remember!
And I took up the burden of life again albeit a strange, new life and came home to fight it out. The prairies did all that for me, Boy!" He paused for a moment, and then spoke in a sadder tone. "It was soon after that, Paul, that I first found you." Paul Zalenska thought that he understood. That, of course, was after Isabella Waring had wrecked his life. Cruel, heartless Isabella!
Yes, Opal was actually in Lucerne, and the suite of rooms once occupied by the mysterious Madame Zalenska were now given over to the little lady from over the seas, who, in spite of her diminutive stature, contrived to impress everybody with a sense of her own importance. She had just received a letter from her fiancé, an unusually impatient communication, even from him.
Opal was not present when the gentlemen were announced, and the bevy of aunts and uncles and cousins were expressing much impatience for her presence which Paul Zalenska echoed fervently in his heart. It was truly pleasant this warm blood-interest of kinship. He liked the American clannishness, and he sighed to think of the utter lack of family affection in his own life.
She should give herself to Paul Zalenska, the man not to Paul the Prince! His rank should gloss over nothing nothing and for all she knew now to the contrary, her future rank as Countess de Roannes was superior to his own.
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