unt, and I must be well on my guard when the messenger from
the office comes here with the answer to my letter.

V

June 17th.--When the dinner hour brought us together again, Count Fosco
was in his usual excellent spirits. He exerted himself to interest and
amuse us, as if he was determined to efface from our memories all
recollection of what had passed in the library that afternoon. Lively
descriptions of his adventures in travelling, amusing anecdotes of
remarkable people whom he had met with abroad, quaint comparisons
between the social customs of various nations, illustrated by examples
drawn from men and women indiscriminately all over Europe, humorous
confessions of the innocent follies of his own early life, when he
ruled the fashions of a second-rate Italian town, and wrote
preposterous romances on the French model for a second-rate Italian
newspaper--all flowed in succession so easily and so gaily from his
lips, and all addressed our various curiosities and various interests
so directly and so delicately, that Laura and I listened to him with as
much attention and, inconsistent as it may seem, with as much
admiration also, as Madame Fosco herself. Women can resist a man's
love, a man's fame, a man's personal appearance, and a man's money, but
they cannot resist a man's tongue when he knows how to talk to them.

After dinner, while the favourable impression which he had produced on
us was still vivid in our minds, the Count modestly withdrew to read in
the library.

Laura proposed a stroll in the grounds to enjoy the close of the long
evening. It was necessary in common politeness to ask Madame Fosco to
join us, but this time she had apparently received her orders
beforehand, and she begged we would kindly excuse her. "The Count will
probably want a fresh supply of cigarettes," she remarked by way of
apology, "and nobody can make them to his satisfaction but myself." Her
cold blue eyes almost warmed as she spoke the words--she looked
actually proud of being the officiating medium through which her lord
and master composed himself with tobacco-smoke!

Laura and I went out together alone.

It was a misty, heavy evening. There was a sense of blight in the air;
the flowers were drooping in the garden, and the ground was parched and
dewless. The western heaven, as we saw it over the quiet trees, was of
a pale yellow hue, and the sun was setting faintly in a haze. Coming
rain seemed near--it would f