Knowing something about these sneezing powders, I did not think we should bleed, but I was mistaken.  Directly after, I felt a drop of blood, and she took a silver basin from her night-table.

“Come here,” said she, “I am beginning to bleed too.”

There we were, bleeding into the same basin, facing each other in the most ridiculous position.  After about thirty drops had fallen from each of us, the bleeding ceased.  She was laughing all the time, and I thought the best thing I could do was to imitate her example.  We washed ourselves in fair water in another basin.

“This admixture of our blood,” said she, still smiling, “will create a sweet sympathy between us, which will only end with the death of one or the other”

I could make no sense of this, but the reader will soon see that the wretched woman did not mean our friendship to last very long.  I asked her to give me some of the powder, but she refused; and on my enquiring the name of it, she replied that she did not know, as a lady friend had given it to her.

I was a good deal puzzled by the effects of this powder, never having heard of the like before, and as soon as I left the countess I went to an apothecary to enquire about it, but Mr. Drench was no wiser than I. He certainly said that euphorbia sometimes produced bleeding of the nose, but it was not a case of sometimes but always.  This small adventure made me think seriously.  The lady was Spanish, and she must hate me; and these two facts gave an importance to our blood-letting which it would not otherwise possess.

I went to see the two charming cousins, and I found the young officer with Mdlle.  F——­ in the room by the garden.  The lady was writing, and on the pretext of not disturbing her I went after Mdlle.  Q——­, who was in the garden.  I greeted her politely, and said I had come to apologize for a stupid blunder which must have given her a very poor opinion of me.

“I guess what you mean, but please to understand that my brother gave me your message in perfect innocence.  Let him believe what he likes.  Do you think I really believed you capable of taking such a step, when we barely knew each other?”

“I am glad to hear you say so.”

“I thought the best thing would be to give a matrimonial turn to your gallantry.  Otherwise my brother, who is quite a young man, might have interpreted it in an unfavourable sense.”

“That was cleverly done, and of course I have nothing more to say.  Nevertheless, I am ’grateful to your brother for having given you to understand that your charms have produced a vivid impression on me.  I would do anything to convince you of my affection.”

“That is all very well, but it would have been wiser to conceal your feelings from my brother, and, allow me to add, from myself as well.  You might have loved me without telling me, and then, though I should have perceived the state of your affections, I could have pretended not to do so.  Then I should have been at my ease, but as circumstances now stand I shall have to be careful.  Do you see?”