"I could reply, countess, in the case of a man who has a bride."

By dint of a sweet suggestion here and there, love-making crossed the
topic. It appeared that General Pierson had finally been attacked, on
the question of his resistance to every endeavour to restore Wilfrid to
his rank, by Count Lenkenstein, and had barely spoken the words--that if
Wilfrid came to Countess Lena of his own free-will, unprompted, to beg
her forgiveness, he would help to reinstate him, when Wilfrid's name was
brought up by the chasseur. All had laughed, "Even I," Lena confessed.
And then the couple had a pleasant petitish wrangle;--he was requested to
avow that he had came solely, or principally, to beg forgiveness of her,
who had such heaps to forgive. No; on his honour, he had come for the
purpose previously stated, and on the spur of his hearing that she was
Countess Alessandra Ammiani's deadly enemy. "Could you believe that I
was?" said Lena; "why should I be?" and he coloured like a lad, which
sign of an ingenuousness supposed to belong to her set, made Lena bold to
take the upper hand. She frankly accused herself of jealousy, though she
did not say of whom. She almost admitted that when the time for
reflection came, she should rejoice at his having sought her to plead for
his friend rather than for her forgiveness. In the end, but with a
drooping pause of her bright swift look at Wilfrid, she promised to
assist him in defeating any machinations against Vittoria's happiness,
and to keep him informed of Countess d'Isorella's movements. Wilfrid
noticed the withdrawing fire of the look. "By heaven! she doubts me
still," he ejaculated inwardly.

These half-comic little people have their place in the history of higher
natures and darker destinies. Wilfrid met Pericles, from whom he heard
that Vittoria, with her husband's consent, had pledged herself to sing