No, in truth and justice I swear that what I then saw on her face was that same look I had noted once before, an expression of almost childish pathos, of longing, of appeal for something missed or gone, though much desired.

No vanity could contemplate with pleasure a look like that on the face of a woman such as Helena von Ritz.
I fancied her unstrung by excitement, by the strain of her trying labor, by the loneliness of her life, uncertain, misunderstood, perhaps, as it was.

I wondered if she could be more unhappy than I myself, if life could offer her less than it did to me.

But I dared not prolong our masking, lest all should be unmasked.
"It is nothing!" she said at last, and laughed gaily as ever.
"Yes, Madam, it is nothing.

I admit my defeat.