encouraged him."

"Then you _did_?"

"I didn't mean to, but I do like him; and I didn't think of his taking
it so to heart. Men are so strange! You think you have a charming
friend, and then they _will_ go on just so, boys and all, and you
have to take them or lose them; and you can't take them. It is too bad!"

We were at the door. The keeper opened it, and there stood the count
waiting for us. It was not the first time we had been in the wonderful
chapel. Fortunately, there were very few persons there on this
afternoon--none that we knew. I sat down to look at the grand frescoes:
Helen and the count walked on to the farthest corner. I looked at the
Cumæan Sibyl, the impersonation of age and wisdom, and wished, as I
glanced at the youthful figures talking so earnestly in the distance,
but not a murmur of whose voices reached my ear, that she would impart
to me her far-reaching vision of futurity. I gazed on the image of the
Eternal Father sweeping in majestic flight through the air, bearing the
angels on His floating garment as He divides the light from the
darkness. I saw Adam, glad with new life, rising from the earth, because
the outstretched finger of his Creator gave him a conscious strength. I
looked at "The Last Judgment," grown dim with years, till every figure
started out in intensity of life, and it seemed as if the faces would
haunt me for ever.

And yonder still progressed the old, ever-new drama of love and anguish,
with its two actors, who seemed scarcely to have changed their position
or taken their eyes from each other. At length they walked slowly toward
me with more serenity of aspect than I had dared to hope.