s doing no more than his breeding demanded of him; and if he had
recoiled from his friend he would have insulted him. I loathed myself
because this duplicity was necessary to our plan, but I never proposed
to myself for a moment to go back from the plan itself. I stood pledged
to Miss Rossano to rescue her father from that horrible long-drawn
imprisonment if the courage, or the wit, of man could compass it; and I
meant, with all my heart and soul, to keep my word. In spite of that I
had no stomach for the means it was necessary to employ; and at last
it came to this: in place of hating and despising myself for using the
means, I took to hating and despising the Austrians for making the means
necessary.

In less than a minute Brunow was justifying his friend's opinion of him
by an extravagantly farcical story of our adventures by the way, and
the young Austrian was laughing at him as if he would burst his stays.
I knew, of course, that he wore those feminine additions to the toilet,
because within the last hour I had seen him take them off and put them
on again; and the effeminacy of that trick, which was of course merely
national and professional, and not in the least to be charged against
him personally, added to the disgust I felt at him and at Brunow, and
at the whole Austrian nation, and at myself, and at our joint
treachery--Brunow's and mine.

So I carried my own moodiness out into the village street, and suddenly
remembering that I was smoking a cigar the harmless, merry-hearted
youngster had given me, I hurled it away and walked hotly along the road
in a state of mind altogether unenviable. I brought myself to reason in
a quarter of an hour, and got back to the inn in time for breakfast; but
I know that I made poor company, and sat there glum and silent while
my two companions shouted with boisterous laughter, and drank more wine
than was good for them at so early an hour in the morning.

At last Brunow shook hands with the lieutenant, and embraced him into
the bargain, and kissed him, and was kissed on both cheeks again, the
young officer having to go back to his duty. I escaped the kisses and
was let off with a hand-shake, with which also I would gladly have
dispensed if I could.

Then Brunow and I were left alone; but he was so full of his
conspirator's caution--developed in a minute when there was no need for
it, and likely as soon to be forgotten when it was wanted--that though
not a soul in the house c