bitterly I resented, while I could not prevent, its hold upon me.

Dinner was over. We took our way into a drawing-room, divided into two
parts by a screen which was drawn half-way. In the other half of the
great room stood an ancient piano, and to this our ancient lady betook
herself.

The Countess sat down in a luxurious chair, and motioned me to sit close
by her in another, but one smaller and lower. We talked of many things,
circling ever about ourselves. Yet I could not keep the old farm out of
my mind--its simple manners, its severe code of morals, its labour and
its pain. Also there came another thought, the sense that all this had
happened before--the devil's fear that I was not the first who had so
sat alone beside the Countess and seen the obsequious movement of these
well-trained servants.

"Tell me, Douglas," at last the Countess said, glancing down kindly at
me, "why you are so silent and _distrait_. This is our first evening
here, and yet you are sad and forgetful, even of me."

What a blind fool I was not to see the innocence and love in her eyes!

"Countess--" I began, and paused uncertain.

"Sir to you!" she returned, making me a little bow in acknowledgment of
the title.

"Lucia," I went on, taking no notice of her frivolity, "I thought--I
thought--that is, I imagined--that your brother--that others would be
here as well as I--"