"

CHAPTER XXXVI -- LOVE

It was hours before Count Victor could trust himself and his tell-tale
countenance before Olivia, and as he remained in an unaccustomed
seclusion for the remainder of the day, she naturally believed him cold,
though a woman with a fuller experience of his sex might have come to
a different conclusion. Her misconception, so far from being dispelled
when he joined her and her father in the evening, was confirmed, for his
natural gaiety was gone, and an emotional constraint, made up of love,
dubiety, and hope, kept him silent even in the precious moments when
Doom retired to his reflections and his book, leaving them at the other
end of the room alone. Nothing had been said about the letter; the Baron
kept his counsel on it for a more fitting occasion, and though Olivia,
who had taken its possession, turned it over many times in her pocket,
its presentation involved too much boldness on her part to be undertaken
in an impulse. The evening passed with inconceivable dulness; the
gentleman was taciturn to clownishness; Mungo, who had come in once or
twice to replenish fires and snuff candles, could not but look at
them with wonder, for he plainly saw two foolish folks in a common
misunderstanding.

He went back to the kitchen crying out his contempt for them.

"If yon's coortin'," he said, "it's the drollest I ever clapt een on!
The man micht be a carven image, and Leevie no better nor a shifty in
the pook. I hope she disnae rue her change o' mind alreadys, for I'll
warrant there was nane o' yon blateness aboot Sim MacTaggart, and it's
no' what the puir lassie's been used to."

But these were speculations beyond the sibyl of his odd adoration;
Annapla was too intent upon her own elderly love-affairs to be
interested in those upstairs.

And upstairs, by now, a topic had at last come on between the silent
pair that did not make for love or cheerfulness. The Baron had retired
to his own room in the rear of the castle, and they had begun to talk
of the departure that was now fixed for a date made imminent through
the pressure of Petullo. Where were they bound for but France? Doom
had decided upon Dunkerque because he had a half-brother there in a
retirement compelled partly for political reasons Count Victor could
appreciate.

"France!" he cried, delighted. "This is ravishing news indeed,
Mademoiselle Olivia!"

"Yes?" she answered dubiously, reddening a little, and wondering why he
shoul