But the Countess made herself particularly gracious and entertaining, and I was perforce obliged to give her a good deal of attention, though my real interest was monopolised by the proceedings of Jeff and his partner. Jeff was undoubtedly the best dancer in the room, and the 'Boston' step which he danced was not only more graceful and easy than the ordinary whirligig, but, by the device of 'reversing,' enabled him to perform his evolutions undisturbed in that vacant centre of the merry-go-round which has been already described. This proficiency of his contributed to the sum of my misfortunes for that evening. I am not myself a good dancer, and I therefore shrank from affording the Countess Almara an opportunity of comparing Jeff's performance with my own. I resolved not to dance at all, and to trust to luck for an opportunity of getting a few minutes' private conversation with her. But the stars in their courses fought against me on this night of August 15. Madame introduced me to the military gentleman, who turned out to be her husband, and he and I presently fell into an animated political discussion. When Jeff and his partner returned they took seats on the further side of the Countess, and it was almost impossible for me to appropriate so much as a glance from those eyes which now held so large a portion of my world's light. I could mark her forced attention to the poet's vapourings; I could divine her secret disgust, and I understood that she endured this petty martyrdom from a mistaken idea of making me reparation for her slight upon him. But I was practically incapacitated for either explanation or consolation. The intangible trammels of society and etiquette are as strong as the thread that bound Fenrir, and I finally made up my mind that I might as well go home. 'Before you go, dear Monsieur Campbell,' said the Countess Semaroff with a glance at the Count, 'we will venture to entreat of you a great favour.' 'I despair of expressing to you the extent of the obligation which your condescension would impose upon us,' added the Count with his bland, impassive politeness. 'Am I really, then, so fortunate as to be able to contribute in any way to the pleasure of the Count and Countess? What happiness!' 'Behold how it becomes ravishing!' exclaimed the Countess. 'Almara, my very dear, Monsieur Campbell will perhaps consent.' The young Countess had been sitting with her hands folded listlessly in her lap, absorbed apparently in her own thoughts, which were who knows how far removed from the confiding chit-chat which poor Jeff was babbling at her ear. She now raised her head and turned her eyes upon me. The deep sentiment contained in that look would have drawn from me, had she required it, the sacrifice even of that happiness which was to be the substance of my life. She said not a word. 'Thou must ask Monsieur; do thou ask him, Almara,' continued the Countess, smiling, 'since it concerns thee.'