e in his eyes since he had sat down beside the young girl,
now almost took the shape of a tear. He was wounded in his innocent
vanity, in the last stronghold of his fast-fading individuality. But Vjera
turned quickly at the words and a momentary fire illuminated her pale blue
eyes and dispelled the misty veil that seemed to dull them.

"Whatever you say, do not say that!" she exclaimed. "I love you with all
my heart--I--ah, if you only understood, if you only knew, if you only
guessed!"

"That is it," answered the Count. "If I only could--but there is something
that passes my understanding."

The look of pain faded from his face and gave way to a bright smile, so
bright, so rare, that it restored in the magic of an instant the freshness
of early youth to the weary mask of sorrow. Then he covered his eyes with
his hands as though searching his memory for something he could not find.

"What is it?" he asked, after a short pause and looking suddenly at Vjera.
"It is something I ought to remember and yet something I have quite
forgotten. Help me, Vjera, tell me what you are thinking of, and I will
explain it all."

"I was thinking of this day a week ago," said Vjera, and a little sob
escaped her as she quickly looked away.

"A week ago? Let me see--what happened a week ago? But why should I ask?
Nothing ever happens to me, nothing until now! And now, oh Vjera, it is
you who do not understand, it is you who do not know, who cannot guess."

As if he had forgotten everything else in the sudden realisation of his
return to liberty and fortune, he began to speak quickly and excitedly in
a tone louder and clearer than that of his ordinary voice.

"No," he cried, "you can never guess what this change is to me. You can
never know what I enjoy in the thought of being myself again, you cannot
understand what it is to have been rich and great, and to be poor and
wretched and to regain wealth and dignity again by the stroke of a pen in
the vibration of a second. And yet it is true, all true, I tell you,
to-day, at last, after so much waiting. To-morrow they will come to my
lodging to fetch me--a court carriage or two, and many officials who will
treat me with the old respect I was used to long ago. They will come up my
little staircase, bringing money, immense quantities of money, and the
papers and the parchments and the seals. How they will stare at my poor
lodging, for they have never known that I have been so wretched. Yes,