ng been lately elected at a club of which he was rather proud, he
wrote to the count asking him to dine with him at the Beaufort. He
explained that there was a stranger's room--which Pateroff knew very
well, having often dined at the Beaufort--and said something as to a
private little dinner for two, thereby apologizing for proposing to the
count to dine without other guests. Pateroff accepted the invitation,
and Harry, never having done such a thing before, ordered his dinner
with much nervousness.

The count was punctual, and the two men introduced themselves. Harry had
expected to see a handsome foreigner, with black hair, polished
whiskers, and probably a hook nose--forty years of age or thereabouts,
but so got up as to look not much more than thirty. But his guest was by
no means a man of that stamp. Excepting that the count's age was
altogether uncertain, no correctness of guess on that matter being
possible by means of his appearance, Harry's preconceived notion was
wrong in every point. He was a fair man, with a broad fair face, and
very light blue eyes; his forehead was low, but broad; he wore no
whiskers, but bore on his lip a heavy moustache which was not gray, but
perfectly white--white it was with years, of course, but yet it gave no
sign of age to his face. He was well made, active, and somewhat broad in
the shoulders, though rather below the middle height. But for a certain
ease of manner which he possessed, accompanied by something of
restlessness in his eye, any one would have taken him for an Englishman.
And his speech hardly betrayed that he was not English. Harry, knowing
that he was a foreigner, noticed now and again some little acquired
distinctness of speech which is hardly natural to a native; but
otherwise there was nothing in his tongue to betray him.

"I am sorry that you should have had so much trouble," he said, shaking
hands with Harry. Clavering declared that he had incurred no trouble,
and declared also that he would be only too happy to have taken any
trouble in obeying a behest from his friend Lady Ongar. Had he been a
Pole as was the count, he would not have forgotten to add that he would
have been equally willing to exert himself with the view of making the
count's acquaintance; but being simply a young Englishman, he was much
too awkward for any such courtesy as that. The count observed the
omission, smiled, and bowed. Then he spoke of the weather, and said that
London was a magnifi