“Scant courtesy, I must say,” exclaimed Lady Augusta, as, after rapidly running her eyes over a note, she flung it across the table towards Pracontal.

They were seated tÊte-À-tÊte in that small drawing-room which looked out upon the garden and the grounds of the Borghese Palace.

“Am I to read it?” asked he.

“Yes, if you like. It is from Augustus Bramleigh, a person you feel some interest in.”

Pracontal took up the note, and seemed to go very carefully over its contents.

“So then,” said he, as he finished, “he thinks it better not to meet—not to know me.”

“Which is no reason on earth for being wanting in a proper attention to me,” said she, angrily. “To leave Rome without calling here, without consulting my wishes, and learning my intentions for the future, is a gross forgetfulness of proper respect.”

“I take it, the news of the trial was too much for him. Longworth said it would, and that the comments of the press would be insupportable besides.”

“But what have I to do with that, sir? Mr. Bramleigh's first duty was to come here. I should have been thought of. I was the first person this family should have remembered in their hour of difficulty.”

“There was no intentional want of respect in it, I 'll be bound,” cried Pracontal. “It was just a bashful man's dread of an awkward moment—that English terror of what you call a 'scene'—that sent him off.”

“It is generous of you, sir, to become his apologist. I only wonder—” Here she stopped and seemed confused.

“Go on, my Lady. Pray finish what you began.”

“No, sir. It is as well unsaid.”

“But it was understood, my Lady, just as well as if it had been uttered. Your Ladyship wondered who was to apologize for me.”

She grew crimson as he spoke; but a faint smile seemed to say how thoroughly she relished that southern keenness that could divine a half-uttered thought.

“How quick you are!” said she, without a trace of irritation.

“Say, rather, how quick he ought to be who attempts to parry you at fence. And, after all,” said he, in a lighter tone, “is it not as well that he has spared us all an embarrassment? I could not surely have been able to condole with him, and how could he have congratulated me?”

“Pardon me, Count, but the matter, so far as I learn, is precisely as it was before. There is neither subject for condolence nor gratulation.”

“So far as the verdict of the jury went, my Lady, you are quite right; but what do you say to that larger, wider verdict pronounced by the press, and repeated in a thousand forms by the public? May I read you one passage, only one, from my lawyer Mr. Kelson's letter?”

“Is it short?”

“Very short.”

“And intelligible?”

“Most intelligible.”

“Read it, then.”

“Here it is,” said he, opening a letter, and turning to the last page. “'Were I to sum up what is the popular opinion of the result, I could not do it better than repeat what a City capitalist said to me this morning: “I'd rather lend Count Pracontal twenty thousand pounds to-day, than take Mr. Bramleigh's mortgage for ten.”'”

“Let me read that. I shall comprehend his meaning better than by hearing it. This means evidently,” said she, after reading the passage, “that your chances are better than his.”

“Kelson tells me success is certain.”

“And your cautious friend Mr.———; I always forget that man's name?”

“Longworth?”

“Yes, Longworth. What does he say?”

“He is already in treaty with me to let him have a small farm which adjoins his grounds, and which he would like to throw into his lawn.”

“Seriously?”

“No, not a bit seriously; but we pass the whole morning building these sort of castles in Spain, and the grave way that he entertains such projects ends by making me believe I am actually the owner of Castello and all its belongings.”

“Tell me some of your plans,” said she, with a livelier interest than she had yet shown.

“First of all, reconciliation, if that be its proper name, with all that calls itself Bramleigh. I don't want to be deemed a usurper, but a legitimate monarch. It is to be a restoration.”

“Then you ought to marry Nelly. I declare, that never struck me before.”

“Nor has it yet occurred to me, my Lady,” said he, with a faint show of irritation.

“And why not, sir? Is it that you look higher?”

“I look higher,” said he; and there was a solemn intensity in his air and manner as he spoke.

“I declare, Monsieur de Pracontal, it is scarcely delicate to say this to me.”

“Your Ladyship insists on my being candid, even at the hazard of my courtesy.”

“I do not complain of your candor, sir. It is your—your—”

“My pretension?”

“Well, yes, pretension will do.”

“Well, my Lady, I will not quarrel with the phrase. I do 'pretend,' as we say in French. In fact, I have been little other than a pretender these last few years.”

“And what is it you pretend to? May I ask the question?”

“I do not know if I may dare to answer it,” said he, slowly.... “I will explain what I mean,” added he, after a brief silence, and drawing his chair somewhat nearer to where she sat. “I will explain. If, in one of my imaginative gossipries with a friend, I were to put forward some claim—some ambition—which would sound absurd coming from me now, but which, were I the owner of a great estate, would neither be extravagant nor ridiculous, the memory of that unlucky pretension would live against me ever after, and the laugh that my vanity excited would ring in my ears long after I had ceased to regard the sentiment as vanity at all. Do you follow me?”

“Yes, I believe I do. I would only have you remember that I am not Mr. Longworth.”

“A reason the more for my caution.”

“Could n't we converse without riddles, Count Pracontal?”

“I protest, I should like to do so.”

“And as I make no objection—”

“Then to begin. You asked me what I should do if I were to gain my suit; and my answer is, if I were not morally certain to gain it, I 'd never exhibit myself in the absurd position of planning a life I was never to arrive at.”

“You are too much a Frenchman for that.”

“Precisely, madame. I am too much a Frenchman for that. The exquisite sensibility to ridicule puts a very fine edge on national character, though your countrymen will not admit it.”

“It makes very tetchy acquaintances,” said she, with a malicious laugh.

“And develops charming generosity in those who forgive us!”

“I cry off. I can't keep up this game of give and take flatteries. Let us come back to what we were talking of,—that is, if either of us can remember it. Oh, yes, I know it now. You were going to tell me the splendid establishment you 'd keep at Castello. I 'm sure the cook will leave nothing to desire,—but how about the stable? That 'steppere' will not exactly be in his place in an Irish county.”

“Madame, you forget I was a lieutenant of hussars.”

“My dear Count, that does not mean riding.”

“Madame!”

“I should now rise and say 'Monsieur!' and it would be very good comedy after the French pattern; but I prefer the sofa and my ease, and will simply beg you to remember the contract we made the other day,—that each was to be at liberty to say any impertinence to the other, without offence being taken.”

Pracontal laid his hand on his heart, and bowed low and deep.

“There are some half a dozen people in that garden yonder, who have passed and repassed—I can't tell how many times—just to observe us. You 'll see them again in a few minutes, and we shall be town-talk to-morrow, I 'm certain. There are no tÊte-À-tÊtes ever permitted in Rome if a cardinal or a monsignore be not one of the performers.”

“Are those they?” cried he, suddenly.

“Yes, and there 's not the least occasion for that flash of the eye and that hot glow of indignation on the cheek: I assure you, monsieur, there is nobody there to couper la gorge with you, or share in any of those social pleasantries which make the 'Bois' famous. The curiously minded individual is a lady,—a Mrs. Trumpler,—and her attendants are a few freshly arrived curates. There, now, sit down again, and look less like a wounded tiger; for all this sort of thing fusses and fevers me. Yes, you may fan me; though if the detectives return it will make the report more highly colored.”

Pracontal was now seated on a low stool beside her sofa, and fanning her assiduously.

“Not but these people are all right,” continued she. “It is quite wrong in me to admit you to my intimacy—wrong to admit you at all. My sister is so angry about it she won't come here—fact, I assure you. Now don't look so delighted and so triumphant, and the rest of it. As your nice little phrase has it, you 'are for nothing' in the matter at all. It is all myself, my own whim, my fancy, my caprice. I saw that the step was just as unadvisable as they said it was. I saw that any commonly discreet person would not have even made your acquaintance, standing as I did; but unfortunately for me, like poor Eve, the only tree whose fruit I covet is the one I 'm told is n't good for me. There go our friends once more. I wish I could tell her who you are, and not keep her in this state of torturing anxiety.”

“Might I ask, my Lady,” said he, gravely, “if you have heard anything to my discredit or disparagement, as a reason for the severe sentence you have just spoken?”

“No, unfortunately not; for in that case my relatives would have forgiven me. They know the wonderful infatuation that attracts me to damaged reputations, and as they have not yet found out any considerable flaw in yours, they are puzzled, out of all measure, to know what it is I see in you.”

“I am overwhelmed by your flattery, madam,” said he, trying to seem amused; but, in spite of himself, showing some irritation.

“Not that,” resumed she, in that quiet manner which showed that her mind had gone off suddenly in another direction,—“not that I owe much deference to the Bramleighs, who, one and all, have treated me with little courtesy. Marion behaved shamefully; that, of course, was to be expected. To marry that odious old creature for a position implied how she would abuse the position when she got it. As I said to Gusty, when a young Oxford man gives five guineas for a mount, he does n't think he has the worth of his money if he does n't smash his collar-bone. There, put down that fan; you are making me feverish. Then the absurdity of playing peeress to me! How ashamed the poor old man was; he reddened through all his rouge. Do you know,” added she, in an excited manner, “that she had the impertinence to compare her marriage with mine, and say that at least rank and title were somewhat nobler ambitions than a mere subsistence and a settlement. But I answered her. I told her, 'You have forgotten one material circumstance. I did not live with your father!' Oh, yes! we exchanged a number of little courtesies of this kind, and I was so sorry when I heard she had gone to Naples. I was only getting into stride when the race was over. As to my settlement, I have not the very vaguest notion who 'll pay it; perhaps it may be you. Oh, of course I know the unutterable bliss; but you must really ask your lawyer, how is my lien to be disposed of. Some one said to me the other day that, besides the estate, you would have a claim for about eighty thousand pounds.”

“It was Longworth said so.”

“I don't like your friend Longworth. Is he a gentleman?”

“Most unquestionably.”

“Well, but I mean a born gentleman? I detest, and I distrust your nature-made gentlemen, who, having money enough to 'get up' the part, deem that quite sufficient. I want the people whose families have given guarantees for character during some generations. Six o'clock! only think, you are here three mortal hours! I declare, sir, this must not occur again; and I have to dress now. I dine at the Prince Cornarini's. Do you go there?”

“I go nowhere, my Lady. I know no one.”

“Well, I can't present you. It would be too compromising. And yet they want men like you, very much, here. The Romans are so dull and stately, and the English who frequent the best houses are so dreary. There, go away now. You want leave to come to-morrow, but I 'll not grant it. I must hear what Mrs. Trumpler says before I admit you again.”

“When, then, may I—”

“I don't know; I have not thought of it. Let it be—let it be when you have gained your lawsuit,” cried she, in a burst of laughter, and hurried out of the room.