The Conte grew still paler, and his face wore an ugly expression;--he picked up a paper-knife of beautiful oriental workmanship, and began to toy with it restlessly. "I beg you to observe," Zoe began, "that I am entirely innocent in this matter. You certainly remember that I postponed for weeks the delivery of your message, and that I fulfilled your commission reluctantly at last. I told you beforehand what the result would be; but you were so perfectly sure that the Countess would remember the name of Stein...." "What's the matter?" asked Kilary approaching them. "What agitates you so, my dear Capriani." "The Conte is determined to prove to me that nothing can withstand his power, not even a paperknife," said Zoe sharply, pointing to the one which the Conte was bending. "Or the Lodrin arrogance," observed Kilary, "eh? My dear Capriani, in my native town in Upper Austria they have an old proverb, 'What can't be lifted must be let alone.' Now if you would only take this proverb to heart you would save yourself a vast amount of time and vexation." Just then the paper-knife snapped in two, and the Conte threw the pieces on the floor. "Who is riding past?" asked the baroness, with undisguised curiosity, leaning out of the window by which she had been standing. "It must be Count Kamenz," said Ad'lin, who had been busy encouraging by her applause the united, artistic efforts of Fermor and Paul Angelico, "I am surprised that he has not paid us a visit before now." "No, it is the Lodrin cousins," said Kilary, "they are evidently going to see Malzin." Ad'lin looked disappointed. And the Conte turning away from the Baroness and Kilary began to pace the room slowly to and fro. After a while he paused in front of his wife, who with a sadder face than usual was cutting out her cretonne flowers. "You went to see the Malzins to-day,--how is he?" "Very ill; unlike other consumptives, he is perfectly aware of his condition, and consequently the future of his children lies heavy on his heart. I did my best to comfort him--but that was little enough." "Do you know whether he still proposes to go to Gleichenberg?" her husband interrupted her. "Yes, he is getting ready to go. Mueller, the old nurse voluntarily offered to accompany him; she could not find it in her heart to have him waited upon and tended by strangers." But Mueller's touching devotion did not interest Capriani in the least. "This is evidently just the time to talk with him about the vault," he said as if to himself. "What do you mean?" exclaimed Frau von Capriani startled out of her usual submissive gentleness,--"with an invalid!" .... "Come, come, let us have no sentimentality!" he interrupted her sharply. "You know I understand nothing of the kind." CHAPTER VIII.