s tightly closed, the Count marched out with his companion into the
broad square. He felt that this had been the last day of his slavery and
that the morrow's sun was to rise upon a brighter and a happier period of
his life, in which there should be no more poverty, no more manual labour,
no more pinching and grinding and tormenting of himself in the hopeless
effort at outward and visible respectability. Poor Vjera saw in his face
what was passing in his mind, but her own expression of sadness did not
change. On the contrary, since his last outbreak of triumphant
satisfaction she had been more than usually depressed. For a long time the
Count did not again notice her low spirits, being absorbed in the
contemplation of his own splendid future. At last he seemed to recollect
her presence at his side, glanced at her, made as though to say something,
checked himself, and began humming snatches from an old opera. But either
his musical memory did not serve him, or his humour changed all at once,
for he suddenly was silent again, and after glancing once more at Vjera's
downcast face his own became very grave.

He had been brought back to present considerations, and he found himself
in one of those dilemmas with which his genuine pride, his innocent and
harmless vanity and his innate kindness constantly beset his life. He had
asked Vjera to marry him, scarcely half an hour earlier, and he now found
himself separated from the moment which had given birth to the generous
impulse, by a lengthened contemplation of his own immediate return to
wealth and importance.

He was deeply attached to the poor Polish girl, as men shipwrecked upon
desert islands grow fond of persons upon whom they could have bestowed no
thought in ordinary life. He had grown well accustomed to his poor
existence, and in the surroundings in which he found himself, Vjera was
the one being in whom, besides sympathy for his misfortune, he discovered
a sensibility rarer than common, and the unconscious development of a
natural refinement. There are strange elements to be found in all great
cities among the colonies of strangers who make their dwellings therein.
Brought together by trouble, they live in tolerance among themselves, and
none asks the other the fundamental question of upper society, "Whence art
thou?"--nor does any make of his neighbour the inquiry which rises first
to the lips of the man of action, "Whither goest thou?" They meet as the
seaweed meets