free to come or go, talk folly or learn sense, say and do good and evil,
according to the freedom of their own wills. I told of our debating
societies, where in the course of one debate there is often enough
treason talked to justify Siberia--and yet, after all, the subject under
discussion would only be, "Is the present Government worthy of the
confidence of the country?"

"And then what happens? What does the Government say?" asked Lucia.

"Ah, Countess!" I said, "in my country the Government does not care to
know what does not concern it. It sits aloft and aloof. The Government
does not care for the chatter of all the young fools in its
universities."

So in the tranced seclusion of this Alpine valley the summer of the year
went by. The flowers carpeted the meadows, merging from pink and blue to
crimson and russet, till with the first snow the Countess and her
brother announced their intention of taking flight--she to the Court of
the South, and he to his estates in the North.

The night before her departure we walked together by the lake. She was
charmingly arrayed in a scarlet cloak lined with soft brown fur; and I
thought--for I was but three-and-twenty--that the turned-up collar threw
out her chin in an adorable manner. She looked like a girl. And indeed,
as it proved, for that night she was a girl.

At first she seemed a little sad, and when I spoke of seeing her again
at the Court of the South she remained silent, so that I thought she
feared the trouble of having us on her hands there. So in a moment I
chilled, and would have taken my hand from hers, had she permitted it.