my command. I am bound to add that she represented
it no less urgently to me."

"On the other hand, of course, the scandal--" Dieppe began.

"We Fieramondi do not much mind scandal. That was n't the difficulty.
The fact is that I thought it the Countess's plain duty to relieve me
of her presence. She took what I may call the exactly converse view.
You follow me?"

"Perfectly," said Dieppe, repressing an inclination to smile.

"And declared that nothing--nothing on earth--should induce her to quit
the Castle even for a day; she would regard such an act as a surrender.
I said I should regard my own departure in the same light. So we stay
here under the extremely inconvenient arrangement I have referred to.
To make sure of my noticing her presence, my wife indulges in something
approaching to an illumination every night."

The Count rose and began to walk up and down as he went on with a
marked access of warmth. "But even the understanding we arrived at,"
he pursued, "I regret to say that my wife did n't see fit to adhere to
in good faith. She treated it with what I must call levity." He faced
round on his guest suddenly. "I mentioned a cat to you," he said.

"You did," Dieppe admitted, eyeing him rather apprehensively.

"I don't know," pursued the Count, "whether you noticed a door in your
room?" Dieppe nodded. "It was bolted?" Dieppe nodded again. "If you
had opened that door--pardon the supposition--you would have seen a
passage. At the other end is another door, leading to the Countess's
apartments. See, I will show you. This fork is the door from your
room, this knife is--"

"I follow your description perfectly," interposed Dieppe, assailed now
with a keener sense of guilt.

"The Countess possesses a cat--a thing to which in itself I have no
objection. To give this creature, which she likes to have with her
constantly, the opportunity of exercise, she has caused an opening to
be made from the passage on to the roof. This piece of bread will
represent--"

"I understand, I assure you," murmured Dieppe.

"Every evening she lets the cat into the passage, whence it escapes on
to the roof. On its return it would naturally betake itself to her
room again."

"Naturally," assented the Captain. Are not cats most reasonable
animals?

"But," said the Count, beginning to walk about again, "she shuts her
door: the animal mews at it; my wife ignores the appeal. What then?
The cat, in despair, tu