merged into a senseless echo of the mysterious female of
the hotel parlor, and shaped itself into this awful and
benumbing axiom--"Praise-to-the-face-is-open-disgrace.
Praise-to-the-face-is-open-disgrace." Inequalities of the road only
quickened its utterance or drawled it to an exasperating length.

It was of no use to consider the statement seriously. It was of no
use to except to it indignantly. It was of no use to recall the many
instances where praise to the face had redounded to the everlasting
honor of praiser and bepraised; of no use to dwell sentimentally
on modest genius and courage lifted up and strengthened by open
commendation; of no use to except to the mysterious female, to picture
her as rearing a thin-blooded generation on selfish and mechanically
repeated axioms--all this failed to counteract the monotonous repetition
of this sentence. There was nothing to do but to give in--and I was
about to accept it weakly, as we too often treat other illusions of
darkness and necessity, for the time being, when I became aware of some
other annoyance that had been forcing itself upon me for the last few
moments. How quiet the driver was!

Was there any driver? Had I any reason to suppose that he was not lying
gagged and bound on the roadside, and the highwayman with blackened face
who did the thing so quietly driving me--whither? The thing is perfectly
feasible. And what is this fancy now being jolted out of me? A story?
It's of no use to keep it back--particularly in this abysmal vehicle,
and here it comes: I am a Marquis--a French Marquis; French, because
the peerage is not so well known, and the country is better adapted to
romantic incident--a Marquis, because the democratic reader delights in
the nobility. My name is something LIGNY. I am coming from Paris to my
country seat at St. Germain. It is a dark night, and I fall asleep