He set off at an impetuous pace, which he moderated almost immediately; and gayly chattering all the way, led me--feeling like a villain at every step, yet not in the least relaxing from my purpose--to the hostel, where we found Brunow chaffing the landlady, who was already busy in the preparation of our breakfast. The impetuous Lieutenant Breschia fell upon his neck and kissed him on both cheeks, and Brunow returned the salute with heartiness. I may as well let the fact out at once and have the declaration over: I was beginning to have a serious dislike for Brunow, though I strove to subdue it, trying to reflect how much our rivalry, of which he knew nothing, might possibly warp my judgment of him. At that minute I felt a downright twinge of hatred and contempt for him; and his kisses made him seem like a sort of Judas in my eyes. I did not pause to reflect that the kiss meant no more to him than a shake of the hand means to a man who has been bred in England, and it is a form of salute which--though I have been familiar with the sight of it for years together--I cordially hate. Those beastly South American Spaniards, among whom I fought, were always at it, with their beards scented with garlic and tobacco! It was a form of salute I had hard work to avoid at times; but I should always have been ready to astonish the man who had succeeded in getting at me in that fashion. I loathed Brunow for his acceptance and return of that caress; and yet the man-was doing no more than his breeding demanded of him; and if he had recoiled from his friend he would have insulted him. I loathed myself because this duplicity was necessary to our plan, but I never proposed to myself for a moment to go back from the plan itself. I stood pledged to Miss Rossano to rescue her father from that horrible long-drawn imprisonment if the courage, or the wit, of man could compass it; and I meant, with all my heart and soul, to keep my word. In spite of that I had no stomach for the means it was necessary to employ; and at last it came to this: in place of hating and despising myself for using the means, I took to hating and despising the Austrians for making the means necessary. In less than a minute Brunow was justifying his friend's opinion of him by an extravagantly farcical story of our adventures by the way, and the young Austrian was laughing at him as if he would burst his stays. I knew, of course, that he wore those feminine additions to the toilet, because within the last hour I had seen him take them off and put them on again; and the effeminacy of that trick, which was of course merely national and professional, and not in the least to be charged against him personally, added to the disgust I felt at him and at Brunow, and at the whole Austrian nation, and at myself, and at our joint treachery--Brunow's and mine.