tone of Doom, who seemed to sour at the very mention of the
unwelcome cavalier.

"Count," said he, "it's the failing of the sex--the very best of them,
because the simplest and the sweetest--that they will prefer a fool to a
wise man and a rogue to a gentleman. They're blind, because the rogue
is for ever showing off his sham good qualities till they shine
better than an ordinary decent man's may. To my eyes, if not quite to
my knowledge, this man is as great a scoundrel as was ever left unhung.
It's in his look--well, scarcely so, to tell the truth, but something
of it is in his mouth as well as in his history, and sooner than see my
daughter take up for life with a creature of his stamp I would have
her in her grave beside her mother. Unluckily, as I say, the man's a
plausible rogue: that's the most dangerous rogue of all, and the girl's
blind to all but the virtues and graces he makes a display of. I'll
forgive Petullo his cheatry in the common way of his craft sooner than
his introduction of such a man to my girl."

To all this Count Victor could no more than murmur his sympathy, but he
had enough of the young gallant in him to make some mental reservations
in favour of the persistent wooer. It was an alluring type, this haunter
of the midnight bower, and melancholy sweet breather in the classic
reed. All the wooers of only daughters, he reminded himself, as well as
all the sweethearts of only sons, were unworthy in the eyes of parents,
and probably Mungo's unprejudiced attitude towards the conspiring lovers
was quite justified by the wooer's real character in spite of the ill
repute of his history. He reflected that this confidence of Doom's left
unexplained his own masquerade of the previous night, but he gave no
whisper to the thought, and had, indeed, forgotten it by evening, when
for the first time Olivia joined them at her father's table.

CHAPTER XVI -- OLIVIA

It was a trying position in which Olivia found herself when first she
sat at the same table with the stranger whose sense of humour, as she
must always think, was bound to be vastly entertained by her ridiculous
story. Yet she carried off the situation with that triumph that ever
awaits on a frank eye, a good honest heart, and an unfailing trust in
the ultimate sympathy of one's fellow-creatures. There was no _mauvaise
honte_ there, Count Victor saw, and more than ever he admired, if that
were possible. It was the cruel father of the piece who