s
to feign, my dear Count; I know you, and I do not come here--to give pain
to you or to this lady, whose appearance interests me extremely.' The
young man replied that he was totally mistaken; that he was not a Count,
but the son of a merchant of Cadiz; that the lady was his wife; and, that
they were travelling for pleasure. The Ambassador, casting his eyes
round the miserably furnished room, which contained but one bed, and some
packages of the shabbiest kind, lying in disorder about the room, 'Is
this, my dear child (allow me to address you by a title which is
warranted by my tender regard for your father), is this a fit residence
for the son of the Count of Moncade?' The young man still protested
against the use of any such language, as addressed to him. At length,
overcome by the entreaties of the Ambassador, he confessed, weeping, that
he was the son of the Count of Moncade, but declared that nothing should
induce him to return to his father, if he must abandon a woman he adored.
The young woman burst into tears, and threw herself at the feet of the
Ambassador, telling him that she would not be the cause of the ruin of
the young Count; and that generosity, or rather, love, would enable her
to disregard her own happiness, and, for his sake, to separate herself
from him. The Ambassador admired her noble disinterestedness. The young
man, on the contrary, received her declaration with the most desperate
grief. He reproached his mistress, and declared that he would never
abandon so estimable a creature, nor suffer the sublime generosity of her
heart to be turned against herself. The Ambassador told him that the
Count of Moncade was far from wishing to render her miserable, and that
he was commissioned to provide her with a sum sufficient to enable her to
return into Spain, or to live where she liked. Her noble sentiments, and
genuine tenderness, he said, inspired him with the greatest interest for
her, and would induce him to go to the utmost limits of his powers, in
the sum he was to give her; that he, therefore, promised her ten thousand
florins, that is to say, about twelve hundred Louis, which would be given
her the moment she surrendered the promise of marriage she had received,
and the Count of Moncade took up his abode in the Ambassador's house, and
promised to return to Spain. The young woman seemed perfectly
indifferent to the sum proposed, and wholly absorbed in her lover, and in
the grief of leaving