you have introduced me."

"You are improving, Professor; that is exactly what I mean. Let us
adjourn from the bowers of Baden to the wind-swept cliffs of Newport--we
can be there before the season is over. But I forgot, you thought you
would not like Newport."

"I am not sure," said Claudius. "Do you think the Countess would go?"

"If you will call there assiduously, and explain to her the glorious
future that awaits your joint literary enterprise, I believe she might
be induced."

Claudius went to bed that night with his head full of this new idea,
just as Mr. Barker had intended. He dreamed he was writing with the
Countess, and travelling with her and talking to her; and he woke up
with the determination that the thing should be done if it were
possible. Why not? She often made a trip to her native country, as she
herself had told him, and why should she not make another? For aught he
knew, she might be thinking of it even now.

Then he had a reaction of despondency. He knew nothing of her ties or of
her way of life. A woman in her position probably made engagements long
beforehand, and mapped out her year among her friends. She would have
promised a week here and a month there in visits all over Europe, and
the idea that she would give up her plans and consent, at the instance
of a two days' acquaintance, to go to America was preposterous. Then
again, he said to himself, as he came back from his morning walk in the
woods, there was nothing like trying. He would call as soon as it was
decent after the dinner, and he would call again.