n's, and the limpid waters of the Danube; sometimes
addressing himself to Antoinette, who listened without a word, and
sometimes to Mme. de Lorcy, whose eyes were turned at intervals towards
M. Langis, seeming to say to him: "Was I not right? Confess that your
apprehensions lacked common-sense. Do you hear him? he has only half
an hour to spend with her, and he describes the Prater. Are you still
thinking of cutting his throat? Please say one polite and civil word
to him. It is not he, it is you who are gloomy. Throw off your sinister
air. How long will this taciturn reverie last in which you are sunk?
You make yourself a laughing-stock--you act like a fool. You resemble
a sphinx of the desert engaged in meditating upon a serpent, and who
mistakes an innocent adder for a viper." M. Langis understood what she
wished to say to him, but he did not throw off his sinister air.

After praising Vienna and its environs, Samuel Brohl eulogized the easy,
careless character of the Viennese. He told, in a sprightly way, several
anecdotes. His gaiety was rather feverish--somewhat forced studied, and
abrupt; but, nevertheless, it was gaiety. Mme. de Lorcy responded to
him, Mlle. Moriaz continued silent; she crumpled between her fingers
the guipure lace of her Marie-Antoinette fichu, and, with fixed eye, she
seemed to be counting the stitches. Samuel Brohl interrupted himself
in the midst of a sentence, and rose suddenly. He turned towards
Antoinette; in a hollow voice he begged her to tell M. Moriaz how much
he regretted that his early departure would deprive him of the honour
and pleasure of visiting him at Cormeilles; then he bowed to Mme. de
Lorcy, thanked her for the happy moments that he had spent with her, and
charged her to commend him to the kind remembrance of Abbe Miollens.

"We shall meet again, my dear count," she said to him, in a clear voice,
emphasizing her words; "and I hope that, before long, we shall make the
acquaintance of the Countess Larinski."

He looked at her in astonishment, and murmured, "I lost my mother ten
years ago."

Immediately, without giving Mme. de Lorcy time to explain herself, he
directed his steps hastily towards the door, followed by three glances,
all three of which spoke, although they did not all say the same thing.
The room was large; during the thirty seconds that it took him to cross
it, the angel of silence hovered in the air.

He was about passing through the door, when, as fatality