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Updated: June 13, 2025
Twice this innocent blind brought us into collision with the military police, who were in a condition of perpetual disquiet, and suspected everybody. Our papers, however, were in perfect order, and Brunow in particular was so well provided with credentials that we were easily set going again, and so by a circuitous road we approached Itzia, and finally pounced down upon it from the hills.
"Stand on one side!" cried Brunow, in a loud and angry voice; and scarcely a second later he entered the room I sat in, and, banging the door noisily behind him, faced me, still grasping in his right hand the walking-cane with which he had offered such a startling announcement of his presence. "You damned traitor!" said Brunow; "you infernal traitor!"
The lady was seated in her rich dress in the common room, and she and Brunow were talking like old friends. Brunow's anger was no more lasting than a child's, and by this time he had quite recovered his good-humor. "Oh, here you are, old fellow," he cried, genially. "Baroness, permit me to introduce to you Captain Fyffe. Fyffe, this is the Baroness Bonnar."
I told him, I forget precisely in what terms, that I was entirely at his service; and after another hesitating pause he blurted out the truth. "I have received an offer for my daughter's hand. The proposal comes to me from the Honorable Mr. Brunow. I owe him the same debt I owe to you, and I own that I should be reluctant to hurt his feelings by a refusal.
"I have repeated to Captain Fyffe, sir," said Brunow, "what I told you less than half an hour ago." "Then," said the count, "you have repeated to Captain Fyffe what I emphatically denied to you. That, sir, is a refusal of my plighted word." His meagre figure was drawn to its full height, he threw his head back, and his deep-sunken eyes flashed with indignation.
He glanced swiftly and warily about him, and, seeing nobody within ear-shot, answered in an easy tone: "I have come to assist in your enterprise, Fyffe, and I mean to see you through it." "I think," I told him, "that I prefer to go through my enterprise alone." "My dear fellow," said Brunow, "I couldn't dream of allowing you to run any risk alone in such a cause.
I am told that people who suffer from kleptomania cannot be taught to be ashamed of stealing, though even a dog has grace enough to be abashed if you catch him in an act of dishonesty. I have met in my lifetime two or three men like Brunow, who lie without temptation, and who do not feel disgraced when detected.
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.
There never lived a man who had more reason for sincerity. My first impression was that he must be spying upon the spies, for my opinion of his patriotism had been so lofty, that next to the Count Rossano and poor old Ruffiano, whom Brunow had betrayed, I should have counted him the last man in all the Italian ranks to be bought by Austrian gold.
For my companion turned out to be none other than that Lieutenant Breschia of whom Brunow had spoken. When my swim was finished he gathered up his clothes in a neat bundle, and holding them in the air in one hand, paddled himself easily across with the other, and dressed beside me.
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