his friend's sympathy.

Now his resolve was growing weaker as the state of hostilities, his
loneliness, the sight of that detestable barricade, became more and
more odious to him. He began to make excuses for the Countess--not
indeed for all that she had done (for her graver offences were unknown
to him), but for what he knew of, for the broken promise and the
renewal of acquaintance with Paul de Roustache. He imputed to her a
picturesque penitence and imagined her, on her side of the barricade,
longing for a pardon she dared not ask and a reconciliation for which
she could hardly venture to hope; he went so far as to embody these
supposed feelings of hers in a graceful little poem addressed to
himself and entitled, "To My Cruel Andrea." In fine the Count was
ready to go on his knees if he received proper encouragement. Here his
pride had its turn: this encouragement he must have; he would not risk
an interview, a second rebuff, a repetition of that insolence of manner
with which he had felt himself obliged to charge the Countess or
another slamming of the door in his face, such as had offended him so
justly and so grievously in those involuntary interviews which had
caused him to change his apartments. But now--the thought came to him
as the happiest of inspirations--he need expose himself to none of
these humiliations. Fortune had provided a better way. Shunning
direct approaches with all their dangers, he would use an intermediary.
By Heaven's kindness the ideal ambassador was ready to his hand--a man
of affairs, accustomed to delicate negotiations, yet (the Count added)
honourable, true, faithful, and tender-hearted. "My friend Dieppe will
rejoice to serve me," he said to himself with more cheerfulness than he
had felt since first the barricade had reared its hated front. He sent
his servant to beg the favour of Dieppe's company.

At the moment--which, to be precise, was four o'clock in the
afternoon--no invitation could have been more unwelcome to Captain
Dieppe. He had received his note from the hands of a ragged urchin as
he strolled by the river an hour before: its purport rather excited
than alarmed him; but the rendezvous mentioned was so ill-chosen, from
his point of view, that it caused him dismay. And he had in vain tried
to catch sight of the Countess or find means of communicating with her
without arousing suspicion. He had other motives too for shrinking
from such expressions of friendliness