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Updated: June 5, 2025
I heard the closing of the outer door, and heard every step of Hinge's feet until he reached the bottom of the stairs. Then the silence was so intense that I could hear Brunow's watch quite distinctly as it ticked in his pocket, and my own kept time to it. "You have decided wisely," I said at last; "and when you have told me the truth you shall have your chance."
Lady Rollinson rambled in this wise, and if I had had nothing to go on beforehand I should not have been able to make head or tail of her discourse; but Brunow's story flashed into my mind in a second, and I was sure that in some fashion it had reached Miss Rossano's ears.
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.
I could not understand the subject of discussion, for Ruffiano had immediately gone back to his native language, and there was something about Brunow's look which could hardly be accounted for by so trifling a misadventure as that which had just occurred. The instinct of the eye told him that I was looking at him, and he glanced at me and then suddenly averted his face.
Ruffiano told me that he had left word at Brunow's lodgings that he might be found here, and we ate our simple dinner, drank our half-flask of Chianti together, and had already reached our coffee and cigars when Brunow came to keep his appointment. He was astonished to find me there, and, I thought, disagreeably astonished.
I never knew a more loyal gentleman, or one less capable of digging such a wicked trap as he fell into. Brunow's manner was altogether a puzzle to me, and even next day, enlightened as I was by events, I was unable to understand it, because it seemed altogether so silly a thing for him to run his neck into the noose as he did.
But if we had been embarrassed on the journey, all our memory of it vanished for the moment in the deeper embarrassment of the reception which Brunow's babble had prepared for us. His prophecy of what would happen was fulfilled, and more than fulfilled. The platform of the terminus swarmed with people of every nationality known to London, and everybody there present seemed crazy with excitement.
When the laughter excited by the accident had died away, Ruffiano turned to him with a voice and gesture of apology; and having once laid his hand on Brunow's shoulder, continued to address him as if the argument he was offering, whatever it might be, concerned Brunow more intimately than any one else there present.
I knew perfectly well, though I could not understand a tenth part of what was said, that Brunow's shameless exaggerations were accepted here as solid truth, and that I was being lauded for a number of splendid qualities which, to say the least, I had had no chance of displaying.
"This," I said, "is the road we shall have to travel if ever we get the Conte di Rossano out of prison." And following the mental road pointed out by this finger-post of thought, I sat down and allowed my fancy to carry me into all manner of worthless and impracticable plans of rescue in which I could dispense with Brunow's aid.
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