“Tell me why you have acted this comedy,” said I, recollecting at the right moment the gist of my reflections during the past two days.

“Why?  To please myself, good sir; for the sovereign; pleasure of myself.”

“I would surmise,” I retorted tartly, “that it could not have been for the pleasure of anyone else.”

“Perhaps you mean, because no one else could be base enough to take pleasure in what amuses me?” I nodded savagely at his question.  “Very good.  Knowing this of me, do you further surmise that I should be so simple as to tell you how I propose to amuse myself in the future?” I recognised the truth of this, and I saw myself checkmated at the outset.  I therefore smiled, and endeavoured to seem completely satisfied, hoping that his vanity would betray him into some hint of the future.  He seemed to have before taken pleasure in misleading me with a fragment of truth, supposing that I could not make use of it.  I would endeavour to lead him into such a trap again.

“It is a beautiful country, is it not?” I remarked, going to the window before which he stood, and looking out.  “You must enjoy it greatly, after the turmoil of society.”  You see, I was once as gay as any of them, in the old days; and so I made the reflection that seemed natural to his case, wondering how he would answer.

“It is indeed a very passable landscape,” he said, indifferently.  “With horses and a charming companion one may kill a little time here, and find a satisfaction in killing it.”  I noticed the slip, by which he spoke of a single companion instead of two.

“Yes,” I replied, “the count is said to be a most agreeable man.”

He paused a moment, and the hesitation seemed to show that the count was not the companion he had in his mind.

“Oh, certainly,” he said at length, “the count is very agreeable, and his daughter is the paragon of all the virtues and accomplishments.”  There was something a little disparaging in his tone as he made the last remark, which seemed to me a clumsy device to throw me off the scent, if scent there were.  Considering his surpassing personal vanity, of which I had received an ocular demonstration when he visited me in Rome, I fancied that if there were nothing more serious in his thoughts he would have given me to understand that Hedwig found him entirely irresistible.  Since he was able to control his vanity, there must be a reason for it.

“I should think that the contessina must be charmed at having so brilliant a companion as yourself in her solitude,” I said, feeling my way to the point.

“With me?  I am an old man.  Children of that age detest old men.”  I thought his manner constrained, and it was unlike him not to laugh as he made the speech.  The conviction grew upon me that Hedwig was the object of his visit.  Moreover, I became persuaded that he was but a poor sort of villain, for he was impulsive, as villains should never be.  We leaned over the stone sill