an's notion!" thought the Chamberlain to himself,
with a swift side glance at this termagant, and a single thought of calm
Olivia.

"You have nothing to say to that, Sim, I see. It's just too late in the
day for you to be virtuous, laddie; your Kate knows you and she likes
you better as you are than as you think you would like to be. We were so
happy, Sim, we were so happy!" A tear dropped on her lap.

"Now heaven forgive me for my infernal folly!" cried out the soul of Sim
MacTaggart; but never a word did he say aloud.

Count Victor, at the other end of the room, listening to Petullo upon
wines he was supposed to sell and whereof Petullo was supposed to be
a connoisseur, though as a fact his honest taste was buttermilk--Count
Victor became interested in the other pair. He saw what it took younger
eyes, and a different experience from those of the husband, to observe.

"Cognac,"--this to M. le Connoisseur with the rheumy eye--"but yes, it
is good; your taste in that must be a national affair, is it not? Our
best, the La Rochelle, has the name of a Scot--I think of Fife--upon the
cask;" but to himself, with a glance again at the tragic comedy in the
corner of the couch, "_Fi donc!_ Mungo had reason; my gentleman of the
dark eye is suspiciously like _cavaliere servante_."

The Chamberlain began to speak fast upon topics of no moment, dreading
the consequence of this surrender on the woman's part: she heard nothing
as she thrust furiously and blindly with her needles, her eyes suffused
with tears courageously restrained. At last she checked him.

"All that means, Sim, that it's true about the girl," said she. "I tried
to think it was a lie when I heard it, but now you compel me to believe
you are a brute. You are a brute, Sim, do you hear that? Oh God! oh God!
that ever I saw you! That ever I believed you! What is wrong with me,
Sim? tell me, Sim! What is wrong with me? Am I different in any way from
what I was last spring? Surely I'm not so old as all that; not a grey
hair in my head, not a wrinkle on my face. I could keep like that for
twenty years yet, just for love of Sim MacTaggart. Sim, say something,
for the love of Heaven! Say it's a lie. Laugh at the story, Sim! Oh,
Sim! Sim!"

The knitting needles clicked upon each other in her trembling hands,
like fairy castanets.

"Who will say that man's fate is in his own fingers?" the Chamberlain
asked himself, at the very end of patience. "From the day I breathed I