est
means to attain this great and final object, she decided that it would
be well to go softly, not to insist too much upon the advantages she had
secured, or to give Lucy too much cause to regret her yielding. The
Contessa had the soul of a strategist, the imagination of a great
general. She did not ignore the feelings of the subject of her
experiment. She even put herself in Lucy's place, and asked herself how
she could bear this or that. She would not oppose or overwhelm the
probable benefactress to whom she, or at least Bice, might afterwards
owe so much. When Sir Tom approached her chair in the evening when he
came in after dinner, as he always did, she made room for him on the
sofa beside her. "I am going to make you my confidant," she said in her
most charming way, with that air of smiling graciousness which made Sir
Tom laugh, yet fascinated him in spite of himself. He knew that she put
on the same air for whomsoever she chose to charm; but it had a power
which he could not resist all the same. "But perhaps you don't care to
be taken into my confidence," she added, smiling, too, as if willing to
admit all he could allege as to her syren graces. She had a delightful
air of being in the joke which entirely deceived Sir Tom.

"On the contrary," he said. "But as we have just heard your plans from
my wife----"

The Contessa kissed her hand to Lucy, who occupied her usual place at
the table.

"I wonder," she said, "if you understand, being only a man, what there
is in that child; for she is but a child. You and I, we are Methuselahs
in comparison."

"Not quite so much as that," he said, with a laugh.

"Methuselahs," she said reflectively. "Older, if that is possible;
knowing everything, while she knows nothing. She is our good angel. It
is what you would not have dared to offer, you who know me--yes, I
believe it--and like me. Oh no, I do not go beyond that English word,
never! You like the Forno-Populo. I know how you men speak. You think
that there is amusement to be got from her, and you will do me the
honour to say, no harm. That is, no permanent harm. But you would not
offer to befriend me, no, not the best of you. But she who by nature is
against such women as I am--Sweet Lucy! Yes it is you I am talking of,"
the Contessa said, who was skilful to break any lengthened speeches like
this by all manner of interruptions, so that it should never tire the
person to whom it was addressed. "She, who is not amused