an was eager to get the news, and
would have printed three times as much if I had felt inclined to give it
him. You can't expect," he went on, "to do a thing of this kind at this
time of day and not have it talked about. And of course it's best to let
these press fellows come to the fountain-head and get the plain, simple,
unadulterated truth."

This, in face of the story he had told, was so monstrous, and, when I
came to think about it, so astonishingly like him, that I forbore to say
another word, except to warn him that the newspapers should not reach
Miss Rossano with my good-will.

He gave in at last, though he grumbled a great deal, and was evidently
as far from understanding me as I was from comprehending him.

We made a dull party on the whole, for nobody could help feeling that
the count and his daughter were absolute strangers to each other, or
that our presence was a little awkward at the time. It was ridiculous
to try to talk commonplace. It felt brutal and unsympathetic to sit in
silence, and almost equally brutal and unsympathetic to say a word of
what was nearest to all our hearts. But if we had been embarrassed on
the journey, all our memory of it vanished for the moment in the deeper
embarrassment of the reception which Brunow's babble had prepared for
us. His prophecy of what would happen was fulfilled, and more than
fulfilled. The platform of the terminus swarmed with people of every
nationality known to London, and everybody there present seemed crazy
with excitement. How, or by whom, our little party was singled out was
beyond my power to guess. But we were recognized in a moment, and in
another moment were swept asunder from each other amid such a polyglot
babel of voices as I had never heard before. People were laughing and
crying and cheering and fighting all at once, and I had a glimpse of
the count in the arms of a score of mustachioed, sallow-featured men who
were weeping and shouting, and hugging and kissing him and each other
like a pack of lunatics inspired with the instinct of welcome. I was
faring little better at the hands of the populace, though I cooled the
enthusiasm of more than one patriot, I am afraid, as I fought my way out
of the railway station. I escaped to a hackney carriage and found my way
to my own lodgings, accompanied by Hinge, who was as delighted at the
scene as I was angry at it. Before I had driven away from the terminus
I had seen from no great distance that the co