"Then this lady is the Countess de St. Alyre."

I was unspeakably surprised; I was disconcerted; but I remembered my
promise, and said:

"The Countess de St. Alyre _is_, unquestionably, the lady to whom I
hoped for an introduction tonight; but I beg to assure you, also on the
honor of a gentleman, that she has not the faintest imaginable suspicion
that I was seeking such an honor, nor, in all probability, does she
remember that such a person as I exists. I had the honor to render her
and the Count a trifling service, too trifling, I fear, to have earned
more than an hour's recollection."

"The world is not so ungrateful as you suppose; or if it be, there are,
nevertheless, a few hearts that redeem it. I can answer for the Countess
de St. Alyre, she never forgets a kindness. She does not show all she
feels; for she is unhappy, and cannot."

"Unhappy! I feared, indeed, that might be. But for all the rest that you
are good enough to suppose, it is but a flattering dream."

"I told you that I am the Countess's friend, and being so I must know
something of her character; also, there are confidences between us, and
I may know more than you think of those trifling services of which you
suppose the recollection is so transitory."

I was becoming more and more interested. I was as wicked as other young
men, and the heinousness of such a pursuit was as nothing, now that
self-love and all the passions that mingle in such a romance were