thus occupied, he left the door partly open, and continued to converse
with Gerald, asking him various questions as to what had befallen him
after having quitted the Tana, and eagerly entering into the strange
vicissitudes of his life as a stroller.

'I met your poet, I think it was at Milan. We were rivals at the time,
and I the victor. A double insult to him, since he hated France and
Frenchmen,' said the Count carelessly. 'There was a story of his having
cut the fingers of his right hand to the bone with a razor, to prevent
his assassinating me. What strange stuff your men of imagination are
made of--ordinary good sense had reserved the razor for the enemy!'

'His is a great and noble nature,' exclaimed Gerald enthusiastically.

'So much the better, then, is it exercised upon fiction: real events and
real men are sore tests to such temperaments. There, I am ready now; one
glass to our next meeting, and good-bye.'

With a hearty shake-hands they parted, and as Gerald looked from the
window, he saw the Count ride slowly down the street. Closing the
window, he threw himself upon a couch and slept soundly.

CHAPTER IV. A SALON UNDER THE MONARCHY

Long after the events which heralded the great Revolution in France had
assumed proportions of ominous magnitude, after even great reverses to
the cause of monarchy, the nobles, whether from motives of hardihood
or from downright ignorance of the peril, continued to display in their
equipages, their mode of living, and their costly retinues, an amount of
splendour terribly in contrast with the privations of the people.

Many of the old families deemed it a point of honour to abate nothing of
the haughty pretensions they had exhibited for centuries; and treating
the widespread discontent as a mere passing irritation, they scoffed
at the fears of those who would regard it as of any moment. Indeed, to
their eyes, the only danger lay in the weak, submissive policy of the
court--a line of action based on the gentle and tender qualities of the
king's own nature, which made him prefer an injury to his own influence,
to even the slightest attack on those who assailed him. Truthfully
or not, it is somewhat hard to say, a certain section of the nobles
asserted that the Queen was very differently minded; that she not only
took a just measure of the difficulty, but saw how it was to be met and
combated. Far from any paltering with the men of the movement, it was
alleged that s