she was piqued at his apparent indifference--at his lack of any
stronger feeling for her--seeming to detect in him something of
her own insouciance and coldness.

"You really don't care for me a bit," she said once. "I am only
another form of 'ze sensation'--like going up in a balloon or
riding on the cow-catcher."

"I keep myself well in hand," he returned. "I am not approaching
the terrible age of forty without knowing a little at least about
women and their ways."

"A little!" she exclaimed ironically. "You know enough to write a
book!"

"Zat book has taught me to go very slow," he said. "Were I in my
young manhood I'd come zoop, like that, and carry you off in ze
Far Vest style. But I can never hope to be that again with any
woman; my decreasing hair forbids, if nozing else--but my way is
to make myself indispensable--ze old dog, ze old standby, as you
Americans say--the good old harbour to which you will come at last
when tired of ze storms outside!"

"Your humility is a new trait," said Florence.

"It's none ze less real because it is often hid," said the count.
"I watch you very closely, more closely than perhaps you even
think. You have all the heartlessness of youth and health and
beauty. I would be wrong to put my one little piece of money on
the table and lose all; and so I save and save, and play ze only