Volume Iii Part 14 (1/2)
won't you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness to remove your mask?'
”'Can any request be more unreasonable?' she replied. 'Ask a lady to yield an advantage! Beside, how do you know you should recognise me?
Years make changes.'
”'As you see,' I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy little laugh.
”'As philosophers tell us,' she said; 'and how do you know that a sight of my face would help you?'
”'I should take chance for that,' I answered. 'It is vain trying to make yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.'
”'Years, nevertheless, have pa.s.sed since I saw you, rather since you saw me, for that is what I am considering. Millarca, there, is my daughter; I cannot then be young, even in the opinion of people whom time has taught to be indulgent, and I may not like to be compared with what you remember me. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in exchange.'
”'My pet.i.tion is to your pity, to remove it.'
”'And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,' she replied.
”'Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or German; you speak both languages so perfectly.'
”'I don't think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise, and are meditating the particular point of attack.'
'At all events, you won't deny this,' I said, 'that being honoured by your permission to converse, I ought to know how to address you. Shall I say Madame la Comtesse?'
”She laughed, and she would, no doubt, have met me with another evasion--if, indeed, I can treat any occurrence in an interview every circ.u.mstance of which was pre-arranged, as I now believe, with the profoundest cunning, as liable to be modified by accident.
”'As to that,' she began; but she was interrupted, almost as she opened her lips, by a gentleman, dressed in black, who looked particularly elegant and distinguished, with this drawback, that his face was the most deadly pale I ever saw, except in death. He was in no masquerade--in the plain evening dress of a gentleman; and he said, without a smile, but with a courtly and unusually low bow:--
”'Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may interest her?'
”The lady turned quickly to him, and touched her lip in token of silence; she then said to me, 'Keep my place for me, General; I shall return when I have said a few words.'
”And with this injunction, playfully given, she walked a little aside with the gentleman in black, and talked for some minutes, apparently very earnestly. They then walked away slowly together in the crowd, and I lost them for some minutes.
”I spent the interval in cudgelling my brains for a conjecture as to the ident.i.ty of the lady who seemed to remember me so kindly, and I was thinking of turning about and joining in the conversation between my pretty ward and the Countess's daughter, and trying whether, by the time she returned, I might not have a surprise in store for her, by having her name, t.i.tle, chateau, and estates at my fingers' ends. But at this moment she returned, accompanied by the pale man in black, who said:
”'I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at the door.'
”He withdrew with a bow.”
CHAPTER XII.
A PEt.i.tION.
”'Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few hours,' I said, with a low bow.
”'It may be that only, or it may be a few weeks. It was very unlucky his speaking to me just now as he did. Do you now know me?'
”I a.s.sured her I did not.
”'You shall know me,' she said, 'but not at present. We are older and better friends than, perhaps, you suspect. I cannot yet declare myself.