Would I help her? Faith, I'd pass the balance of my life turning flip-flaps to please her. I did not attempt to undeceive myself; I realized that the lightning had struck me--that I was desperately in love with the young Countess from the tip of her bonnet to the toe of her small, polished shoe. I was curiously cool about it, too, although my heart gave a thump that nigh choked me, and I felt myself going red from temple to chin. If the Countess d'Alzette noticed it she gave no sign, unless the pink tint under her eyes, deepening, was a subtle signal of understanding to the signal in my eyes. "Suppose," she said, "that I failed, before the congress, to prove my theory? Suppose my investigations resulted in the exposure of a fraud and my name was held up to ridicule before all Europe? What would become of you, monsieur?" I was silent. "You are already celebrated as the discoverer of the mammoth and the great auk," she persisted. "You are young, enthusiastic, renowned, and you have a future before you that anybody in the world might envy." I said nothing. "And yet," she said, softly, "you risk all because you will not leave a young woman friendless among her confreres. It is not wise, monsieur; it is gallant and generous and impulsive, but it is not wisdom. Don Quixote rides no more in Europe, my friend." "He stays at home--seventy million of him--in America," said I. After a moment she said, "I believe you, monsieur." "It is true enough," I said, with a laugh. "We are the only people who tilt at windmills these days--we and our cousins, the British, who taught us." I bowed gayly, and added: "With your colors to wear, I shall have the honor of breaking a lance against the biggest windmill in the world." "You mean the Citadel of Science," she said, smiling. "And its rock-ribbed respectability," I replied. She looked at me thoughtfully, rolling and unrolling the scroll in her hands. Then she sighed, smiled, and brightened, handing me the scroll. "Read it carefully," she said; "it is an outline of the policy I suggest that we follow. You will be surprised at some of the statements. Yet every word is the truth. And, monsieur, your reward for the devotion you have offered will be no greater than you deserve, when you find yourself doubly famous for our joint monograph on the ux. Without your vote in the committee I should have been denied a hearing, even though I produced proofs to support my theory. I appreciate that; I do most truly appreciate the courage which prompted you to defend a woman at the risk of your own ruin. Come to me this evening at nine. I hold for you in store a surprise and pleasure which you do not dream of." "Ah, but I do," I said, slowly, under the spell of her delicate beauty and enthusiasm. "How can you?" she said, laughing. "You don't know what awaits you at nine this evening?" "You," I said, fascinated. The color swept her face; she dropped me a deep courtesy.