“Brunow has put the question, sir,” I answered, “and he has a right to be answered. You can guess now, I fancy, why I can give you no advice.” “That is enough,” said the count. “Pray understand me, my dear Fyffe. This is a matter of delicacy in which I am perhaps acting very strangely, but I have thought that you cared for my child. I had hoped that it was so, and I had hoped that she might care for you. I had not thought of Mr. Brunow in this way; and if I intrust my daughter's happiness to his charge, I am afraid.” “I did not know,” I told him, “that I had betrayed myself. If you have found out the truth about me, I can't be blamed for having told you. I should have spoken to you weeks ago, but you see how I live.” He cast his eyes about the room and nodded. “I am as poor as a church-mouse, and I see no way to better my position.” “I had some hopes,” said the count, “that you might tell me this. It was that which led me to come here and ask you to advise me.” A wild and improbable hope sprang into my mind, but it died as soon as it was born. Perhaps I was absurd enough to fancy the count had seen something in his daughter's manner which led him to believe that she cared for me, and perhaps he had taken advantage of Brunow's proposal to awake me to a sense of my own wasted opportunities. I put that fancy by, for intimate as I had grown to be with Miss Rossano. I had never discerned the faintest hint in her manner of anything but friendship. If my fancy had not been already dead, the count's next words would have killed it outright. “I have nothing,” he said, “to guide me to my daughter's feelings, but I am certain of my own. Mr. Brunow's declaration took me by surprise, but I had been expecting yours, and should have received it with pleasure.” “I did my best to form an honest judgment and to act like an honorable man. Mr. Brunow,” I said, “has known Miss Rossano much longer than I have. I must not disguise the fact that he has more than once spoken to me of his attachment to her. He mentioned that months ago, but in such a way that I hardly supposed him to be in earnest. He has spoken first, and he has a right to an answer. If when he has received his answer I still have a right to speak, I may do so.” “That,” said the count, “is not the conclusion at which I hoped you would arrive. I think I can offer an alternative. If I ask you to look at this matter like a man of the world, you will have a right to laugh at my presumption. I was a man of the world once, but that was long ago. I have lost so much that what is left to me is hidden in a cloud of self-distrust; yet I think I am right in this, and you yourself shall be the judge.”