lightly turned up at their points, showed nails like almonds, which
caught the light. Adam smiled at his wife's impatience, and looked at
her with a glance which two years of married life had not yet chilled.
Already the little countess had made herself mistress of the situation,
for she scarcely paid attention to her husband's admiration. In fact,
in the look which she occasionally cast at him, there seemed to be the
consciousness of a Frenchwoman's ascendancy over the puny, volatile, and
red-haired Pole.

"Here comes Paz," said the count, hearing a step which echoed through
the gallery.

The countess beheld a tall and handsome man, well-made, and bearing
on his face the signs of pain which come of inward strength and secret
endurance of sorrow. He wore one of those tight, frogged overcoats which
were then called "polonaise." Thick, black hair, rather unkempt, covered
his square head, and Clementine noticed his broad forehead shining like
a block of white marble, for Paz held his visored cap in his hand.
The hand itself was like that of the Infant Hercules. Robust health
flourished on his face, which was divided by a large Roman nose and
reminded Clementine of some handsome Transteverino. A black silk cravat
added to the martial appearance of this six-foot mystery, with eyes of
jet and Italian fervor. The amplitude of his pleated trousers, which
allowed only the tips of his boots to be seen, revealed his faithfulness
to the fashions of his own land. There was something really burlesque
to a romantic woman in the striking contrast no one could fail to remark
between the captain and the count, the little Pole with his pinched face
and the stalwart soldier.

"Good morning, Adam," he said familiarly. Then he bowed courteously as
he asked Clementine what he could do for her.

"You are Laginski's friend!" exclaimed the countess.

"For life and death," answered Paz, to whom the count threw a smile of
affection as he drew a last puff from his perfumed pipe.

"Then why don't you take your meals with us? why did you not accompany
us to Italy and Switzerland? why do you hide yourself in such a way that
I am unable to thank you for the constant services that you do for us?"
said the countess, with much vivacity of manner but no feeling.

In fact, she thought she perceived in Paz a sort of voluntary servitude.
Such an idea carried with it in her mind a certain contempt for a social
amphibian, a being half-secretary, half-bai