these curious notions?"

"Ah, I have been with so many husbands at the last, Count Manuel."

And Manuel shrugged. "What fearful indiscretions you suggest! No,
friend, that sort of thing has an ill sound, and they should have
remembered that even at the last there is the bond of silence."

"Come, come, Count Manuel, you are a queer cool fellow, and you have
worn these masks and attitudes with tolerable success, as your world
goes. But you are now bound for a diversely ordered world, a world in
which your handsome wrappings are not to the purpose."

"Well, I do not know how that may be," replies Count Manuel, "but at all
events there is a decency in these things and an indecency, and I shall
never of my own free will expose the naked soul of Manuel to anybody.
No, it would be no pleasant spectacle, I think: certainly, I have never
looked at it, nor did I mean to. Perhaps, as you assert, some power
which is stronger than I may some day tear all masks aside: but this
will not be my fault, and I shall even then reserve the right to
consider that stripping as a rather vulgar bit of tyranny. Meanwhile I
must, of necessity, adhere to my own sense of decorum, and not to that
of anybody else, not even to the wide experience of one"--Count Manuel
bowed,--"who is, in a manner of speaking, my guest."

"Oh, as always, you posture very tolerably, and men in general will
acclaim you as successful in your life. But do you look back! For the
hour has come, Count Manuel, for you to confess, as all persons confess
at my arrival, that you have faltered between one desire and another,
not ever knowing truly what you desired, and not ever being content with
any desire when it was accomplished."

"Softly, friend! For I am forced to gather from your wild way of talking
that you of the Leshy indeed do not keep any record of our human
doings."

The stranger raised what he had of eyebrows. "But how can we," he
inquired, "when we have so many matters of real importance to look
after?"

Candid blunt Dom Manuel answered without any anger, speaking even
jovially, but in all maintaining the dignity of a high prince assured of
his own worth.

"That excuses, then, your nonsensical remarks. I must make bold to
inform you that everybody tells me I have very positive achievements to
look back upon. I do not care to boast, you understand, and to be forced
into self-praise is abhorrent to me. Yet truthfulness is all important
at this solemn hour, a