at different, sir, but, I trust, will be as readily
accorded. It is this: that you resign your position as _attache_ to
this embassy, and leave Vienna at once. There is no necessity that any
unfavourable notice of this affair should follow you to another mission,
or to England."

"Stop, sir, I beg of you: I cannot be answerable for my temper, if you
persist to outrage it. While you may press me to acknowledge that,
while half an hour ago I only deemed you a 'Fat,' I now account you an
imbecile.'"

"Enough!" said the Count, passing down the stairs before me.

When I reached my lodgings, I found a "friend" from him, who arranged
a speedy meeting. We fought that same evening, behind the Prater, and I
received his ball in my shoulder--mine, pierced his hat. I was recalled
before my wound permitted me to leave my bed. The day I left Vienna,
Lady Blanche was married to Count Favancourt!

Some fourteen years had elapsed since that event and the time in which
I now lay sleeping on the sofa; and yet, after all that long
interval--with all its scenes of varied interests, its stormy passions,
its hopes, its failures, its successes--the image of Blanche was before
my mind's eye, as brightly, joyously fair, as on the evening I first
beheld her. I had forgotten all, that time and worldly knowledge had
taught me, that, of all her attractions, her beauty only was real--that
the graceful elegance of her bearing was only manner--that her
gentleness was manner--her winning softness and delicacy mere
manner--that all the fair endowments that seemed the rich promise of
a gifted mind, united to a nature so bounteously endowed, were mere
manner. She was _spirituelle_, lively, animated, and brilliant--all,
from nothing but manner. To this knowledge I did not come without many a
severe lesson. The teaching has been perfect, however, and made me
what I am! Alas! how is it that mere gilding can look so like solid
gold--nay, be made to cover more graceful tracery, and forms more purely
elegant, than the real metal?

I have said that I slept; and, as I lay, dreams came over me--dreams of
that long-past time, when the few shadows that fell over my path in life
were rather spots where, like the traveller on a sunny road, one halts
to breathe awhile, and taste in the cool shade the balmy influence of
repose. I thought of Blanche, too, as first I had seen her, and when
first she taught my heart to feel the ecstasy of loving, breathing into
my nat