The Count de St. Germaine, without removing his eyes from his victim, took another deep, luxurious pinch of snuff. Then he shut the lid with a snap, and slipped the box again into his pocket, but all that time his eyes never once moved from the cowering Oliver. Suddenly he burst out laughing, and clapped the lad upon the shoulder. "I will tell you what I will do to you, Oliver," said he; "I will forgive you! Do you hear me? _I will forgive you!_" Oliver slowly removed his hands from his face, and looked up with dumb bewilderment. "You forgive me?" he repeated, stupidly. "Yes, I forgive you." A long pause of silence followed, during which Oliver looked intently and earnestly into that smiling face, so close to his own. That smiling face--it was an impenetrable mask, it was the face of a sphinx, and Oliver might almost as well have tried to read the one as the other. Yet there was a soul behind it, and that soul could not entirely be hidden; one glimpse of it flashed out through the eyes. Oliver saw it and shuddered. "You forgive me?" he repeated. "What do you mean? I do not comprehend. What would you have me do?" The other shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. "What would I have you do?" said he. "You surprise me! I talk to you, and you do not seem to hear me. I say that I forgive you, and you do not seem to understand. What I mean is that you shall continue to live here, as you have already done, in an atmosphere of happiness and love. It is beautiful, as all Paris says; it is delightful! After all, I cannot punish you, for I have not the heart to interfere with it. By-and-by you shall marry Mademoiselle Céleste." Oliver never removed his looks from the other's face. "Marry Céleste?" he murmured, mechanically. "Certainly," said the other, "I never saw you so dull. I said that you were to marry Mademoiselle Céleste--to marry her. But, there! I see what it is. You are not yet recovered from your illness in Madame de Pompadour's salon. It was indeed insufferably hot. Poor lady! she is like a green cockatoo, she cannot abide a touch of cold. But I weary you; I will take another opportunity of visiting you. But remember, my dear Oliver, I forgive you. _Au revoir!_"