"True," said I, senselessly dogged; "a woman with the power to think for yourself. That is my point. If the same situation arose at your present age, I fancy you'd be able to select a husband without assistance, and I venture to say you wouldn't pick up the first dissolute nobleman that came your way. No, my dear countess, you were not to blame. You thought, as your parents did, that marriage with a count would make a real countess of you. What rot! You are a simple, lovable American girl and that's all there ever can be to it. To the end of your days you will be an American. It is not within the powers of a scape-grace count to put you or any other American girl on a plane with the women who are born countesses, or duchesses, or anything of the sort. I don't say that you suffer by comparison with these noble ladies. As a matter of fact you are surpassingly finer in every way than ninety-nine per cent. of them,--poor things! Marrying an English duke doesn't make a genuine duchess out of an American girl, not by a long shot. She merely becomes a figure of speech. Your own experience should tell you that. Well, it's the same with all of them. They acquire a title, but not the homage that should go with it." We were both standing now. She was still measuring me with somewhat incredulous eyes, rather more tolerant than resentful. "Do you expect me to agree with you, Mr. Smart?" she asked. "I do," said I, promptly. "You, of all people, should be able to testify that my views are absolutely right." "They are right," she said, simply. "Still you are pretty much of a brute to insult me with them." "I most sincerely crave your pardon, if it isn't too late," I cried, abject once more. (I don't know what gets into me once in a while.) "The safest way, I should say, is for neither of us to express an opinion so long as we are thrown into contact with each other. If you choose to tell the world what you think of me, all well and good. But please don't tell _me_." "I can't convince the world what I think of you for the simple reason that I'd be speaking at random. I don't know who you are." "Oh, you will know some day," she said, and her shoulders drooped a little. "I've--I've done a most cowardly, despicable thing in hunting you--" "Please! Please don't say anything more about it. I dare say you've done me a lot of good. Perhaps I shall see things a little more clearly. To be perfectly honest with you, I went into this marriage with my you his queen? You'll find it better than being a countess, believe me." "I shall never marry, Mr. Smart," she said with decision. "Never, never again will I get into a mess that is so hard to get out of. I can say this to you because I've heard you are a bachelor. You can't take offence." "I fondly hope to die a bachelor," said I with humility.