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Page 10
"I am bored," she replied. "I am weary of perpetually playing a farce."
"But how are we playing a farce?" he asked in astonishment. "We are trying
to make our fortune, or as the French more correctly express it, _Nous
corrigous notre fortune_. Why do you call it playing a farce?"
"Because we pretend to be what we are not, honest aristocrats."
"My dear, you are combining what is rarely put together in life; for you
see aristocratic people are rarely honest, and honest folk are seldom
aristocrats."
"But we are neither," she said quietly.
"The more renown for us that we appear to be both," he cried, laughing,
"and that no one suspects us. My dear Leonore seems to have an attack of
melancholy to-day, which I have never witnessed in her before, and which
renders me suspicious."
"Suspicious?" she asked, and, for the first time, turned her head slightly,
fixing her eyes with a questioning glance upon the old man who sat beside
her, nodding and smiling. "Suspicious! I don't know what you mean."
"Well, I really did not intend to say anything definite," he replied,
smiling. "I only meant that it is strange to see you suddenly so depressed
by your position, which hitherto so greatly amused you. And, because this
seemed strange, I sought--searching you know is a trait of human nature--I
sought the cause of this new mood."
"Do you think you have found it?" she asked carelessly.
"Perhaps so," he said, smiling. "The most clever and experienced woman may
be deluded by love, and suffer her reason to be clouded by sweet, alluring
visions."
"You mean that I have done so?"
"Yes, that is what I mean; but it gives me no further anxiety, for I have
confidence that your reason will soon conquer your heart. So I do not
grudge you the rare satisfaction of enjoying the bliss of being loved. Only
I warn you not to take the matter seriously and strive to make the dream a
reality."
"And if that should happen, what would you do?"
"I would be inexorable," he answered sternly. "I would tell who and what
you are."
She lay motionless; her face still retained its calm, indifferent
expression, only for a moment an angry flash darted from her eyes at the
old gentleman, but she lowered her lids over them, as if they must not
betray the secrets of her soul.
A pause followed, interrupted only by the slow, regular ticking of the
great Rococo clock which stood on the marble mantelpiece.
"You will not find it necessary to make such disclosures," Leonore said at
last, slowly and wearily, "for you are perfectly right, I shall never grant
love the mastery over my future. I know who I am, and that says everything.
It will never be requisite to communicate it to others."
"I am sure of it," he said kindly. "And now, my dear Leonore, let us say
nothing about our private affairs and pass on to business."
"Yes, let us do so," she answered quietly. "I am waiting for your
questions."
"Then first: what did Count Andreossy want, when he begged for an interview
so urgently yesterday evening?"
"You were listening?" she asked calmly.
"I heard it. I would gladly have listened to your conversation, but you
were malicious enough to grant him the interview in the little corner
drawing-room, which has but a single entrance. So it was impossible to
enter it unnoticed. Well, what did the count want?"
"He wanted to tell me that he loved me unutterably. He wanted to implore
the favor of accepting from him the _coup�_ with the two dapple-grays, in
which he drove me yesterday, and which I had praised."
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