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Updated: July 5, 2025
At those words the lady in the mask turned away and seemed to weep. I vowed myself the willing slave of the Countess. "But," I added, "you told me she would soon be here." "That is, if nothing unforeseen should happen; but with the eye of the Count de St. Alyre in the house, and open, it is seldom safe to stir." "Does she wish to see me?" I asked, with a tender hesitation.
"You will be good enough to direct your man to re-adjust the lid of the coffin, and to fix the screws," said the Count, taking courage; "and and really the funeral must proceed. It is not fair to the people, who have but moderate fees for night-work, to keep them hour after hour beyond the time." "Count de St. Alyre, you shall go in a very few minutes.
I scaled the park wall again, and reached the Dragon Volant before its doors were closed. I lay awake in my bed, in a fever of elation. I saw, till the dawn broke, and chased the vision, the beautiful Countess de St. Alyre, always in the dark, before me. The Marquis called on me next day. My late breakfast was still upon the table. He had come, he said, to ask a favor.
Alyre is, unquestionably, the lady to whom I hoped for an introduction tonight; but I beg to assure you, also on the honor of a gentleman, that she has not the faintest imaginable suspicion that I was seeking such an honor, nor, in all probability, does she remember that such a person as I exists.
"I promised to wait here for my friend's return. The Count de St. Alyre said that he intended to introduce me to the Countess." "And Monsieur is so simple as to believe him?" "Why should I not?" "Because he is jealous and cunning. You will see. He will never introduce you to his wife. He will come here and say he cannot find her, and promise another time."
But my heart was too full of the beautiful lady of the Belle Etoile, to allow our interview to close without an effort to learn something about her. I therefore asked for the Count and Countess de St. Alyre, whom I had had the good fortune to extricate from an extremely unpleasant row in the hall of the inn. Alas! he had not seen them since. He did not know where they were staying.
But how dare I believe that Mademoiselle does not speak, rather from her own sympathy or goodness, than from a certainty that the Countess de St. Alyre would concede so great an honor?" "Monsieur believes either that I am not, as I pretend to be, in the secret which he hitherto supposed to be shared by no one but the Countess and himself, or else that I am cruelly mystifying him.
I am, even now, ashamed as I recall the bombast to which I treated the Countess de St. Alyre. "There, you shall have another miniature glass a fairy glass of noyau," she said gaily. In this volatile creature, the funereal gloom of the moment before, and the suspense of an adventure on which all her future was staked, disappeared in a moment.
In entire ignorance of the fact I had entered the room, and there I might have lighted upon some of the very persons it was our special anxiety that I should avoid. These reflections were interrupted, almost as soon as began, by the return of the Countess de St. Alyre. I saw at a glance that she detected in my face some evidence of what had happened, for she threw a hasty look towards the door.
I had the honor to render her and the Count a trifling service, too trifling, I fear, to have earned more than an hour's recollection." "The world is not so ungrateful as you suppose; or if it be, there are, nevertheless, a few hearts that redeem it. I can answer for the Countess de St. Alyre, she never forgets a kindness. She does not show all she feels; for she is unhappy, and cannot."
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