Won’t you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness
to remove your mask?’

“‘Can any request be more unreasonable?’ she replied. ‘Ask a lady to
yield an advantage! Beside, how do you know you should recognize me? Years make changes.’

“‘As you see,’ I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy
little laugh. “‘As philosophers tell us,’ she said; ‘and how do you know that a sight
of my face would help you?’

“‘I should take chance for that,’ I answered. ‘It is vain trying to
make yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.’

“‘Years, nevertheless, have passed since I saw you, rather since you
saw me, for that is what I am considering. Millarca, there, is my
daughter; I cannot then be young, even in the opinion of people whom
time has taught to be indulgent, and I may not like to be compared with
what you remember me. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in exchange.’

“‘My petition is to your pity, to remove it.’

“‘And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,’ she replied. “‘Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or
German; you speak both languages so perfectly.’

“‘I don’t think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise,
and are meditating the particular point of attack.’

“‘At all events, you won’t deny this,’ I said, ‘that being honored by
your permission to converse, I ought to know how to address you. Shall
I say Madame la Comtesse?’

“She laughed, and she would, no doubt, have met me with another
evasion—if, indeed, I can treat any occurrence in an interview every
circumstance of which was prearranged, as I now believe, with the
profoundest cunning, as liable to be modified by accident. “‘As to that,’ she began; but she was interrupted, almost as she opened
her lips, by a gentleman, dressed in black, who looked particularly
elegant and distinguished, with this drawback, that his face was the
most deadly pale I ever saw, except in death. He was in no
masquerade—in the plain evening dress of a gentleman; and he said,
without a smile, but with a courtly and unusually low bow:—

“‘Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may
interest her?’

“The lady turned quickly to him, and touched her lip in token of
silence; she then said to me, ‘Keep my place for me, General; I shall
return when I have said a few words.’

“And with this injunction, playfully given, she walked a little aside
with the gentleman in black, and talked for some minutes, apparently
very earnestly. They then walked away slowly together in the crowd, and
I lost them for some minutes. “I spent the interval in cudgeling my brains for a conjecture as to the
identity of the lady who seemed to remember me so kindly, and I was
thinking of turning about and joining in the conversation between my
pretty ward and the Countess’s daughter, and trying whether, by the
time she returned, I might not have a surprise in store for her, by
having her name, title, chateau, and estates at my fingers’ ends. But
at this moment she returned, accompanied by the pale man in black, who
said:

“‘I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at
the door.’

“He withdrew with a bow.”




XII. A Petition


“‘Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few
hours,’ I said, with a low bow. “‘It may be that only, or it may be a few weeks. It was very unlucky
his speaking to me just now as he did. Do you now know me?’

“I assured her I did not. “‘You shall know me,’ she said, ‘but not at present. We are older and
better friends than, perhaps, you suspect. I cannot yet declare myself. I shall in three weeks pass your beautiful schloss, about which I have
been making enquiries. I shall then look in upon you for an hour or
two, and renew a friendship which I never think of without a thousand
pleasant recollections. This moment a piece of news has reached me like
a thunderbolt. I must set out now, and travel by a devious route,
nearly a hundred miles, with all the dispatch I can possibly make. My
perplexities multiply. I am only deterred by the compulsory reserve I
practice as to my name from making a very singular request of you. My
poor child has not quite recovered her strength. Her horse fell with
her, at a hunt which she had ridden out to witness, her nerves have not
yet recovered the shock, and our physician says that she must on no
account exert herself for some time to come. We came here, in
consequence, by very easy stages—hardly six leagues a day. I must now
travel day and night, on a mission of life and death—a mission the
critical and momentous nature of which I shall be able to explain to
you when we meet, as I hope we shall, in a few weeks, without the
necessity of any concealment.’

“She went on to make her petition, and it was in the tone of a person
from whom such a request amounted to conferring, rather than seeking a
favor. This was only in manner, and, as it seemed, quite unconsciously. Than
the terms in which it was expressed, nothing could be more deprecatory. It was simply that I would consent to take charge of her daughter
during her absence. “This was, all things considered, a strange, not to say, an audacious
request. She in some sort disarmed me, by stating and admitting
everything that could be urged against it, and throwing herself
entirely upon my chivalry. At the same moment, by a fatality that seems
to have predetermined all that happened, my poor child came to my side,
and, in an undertone, besought me to invite her new friend, Millarca,
to pay us a visit. She had just been sounding her, and thought, if her
mamma would allow her, she would like it extremely. “At another time I should have told her to wait a little, until, at
least, we knew who they were. But I had not a moment to think in. The
two ladies assailed me together, and I must confess the refined and
beautiful face of the young lady, about which there was something
extremely engaging, as well as the elegance and fire of high birth,
determined me; and, quite overpowered, I submitted, and undertook, too
easily, the care of the young lady, whom her mother called Millarca. “The Countess beckoned to her daughter, who listened with grave
attention while she told her, in general terms, how suddenly and
peremptorily she had been summoned, and also of the arrangement she had
made for her under my care, adding that I was one of her earliest and
most valued friends. “I made, of course, such speeches as the case seemed to call for, and
found myself, on reflection, in a position which I did not half like. “The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted the
lady from the room. “The demeanor of this gentleman was such as to impress me with the
conviction that the Countess was a lady of very much more importance
than her modest title alone might have led me to assume.