He had nearly uttered the words; but he did not. He felt that his mission that morning was too serious to be risked without the most cautious introduction. Besides, she was in far too good spirits to have such a suggestion made to her. He felt instinctively that, in her present mood, she would certainly laugh at him—the most frightful catastrophe that can happen to a man under the circumstances. And Count Schönstein had sufficient acquaintance with actresses to know, that while they have the most astonishing capacity for emotion, if their sympathies be properly excited, there are no people who, in cold blood, can so accurately detect the ridiculous in a man’s exterior. An actress in love forgets everything but her love; an actress not in love has the cruellest eye for the oddities or defects of figure and costume. At the present moment, Count Schönstein felt sure that if he spoke of love, and marriage, and so forth, Miss Brunel would be looking at the rose in his button-hole, or scanning his stiff necktie and collar, or the unblushing corpulence of his waist. In his heart he wished he had no rose in his button-hole. It would be very easy to make fun of this poor Count (and he was aware of the fact himself) as he stood there, irresolute, diffident, anxious. But there was something almost pathetic as well as comic in his position. Consider how many vague aspirations were now concentrated upon this visit. Consider how he had thought about it as he had dressed himself many a morning, as he had gone to bed many a night; how, with a strange sort of loyalty, he had striven to exalt his motives and persuade himself that he was quite disinterested; how the dull pursuit of his life, position and influence, had been tinged with a glow of sentiment and romance by meeting this young girl. "She has no friends," he said to himself, many a time, "neither have I. Why should not we make common cause against the indifference and hauteur of society? I can make a good husband—I would yield in all things to her wishes. And away down in Kent together—we two—even if we should live only for each other——" The Count tried hard to keep this view of the matter before his eyes. When sometimes his errant imagination would picture his marriage with the poor actress,—then his claim, on behalf of his wife, for the estates and title of the Marquis of Knottingley’s daughter—then the surprise, the chatter of the clubs, the position in society he would assume, the money he would have at his command, the easy invitations to _battues_ he could dispense like so many worthless coppers among the young lords and venerable baronets—and so forth, and so forth—he dwelt upon the prospect with an unholy and ashamed delight, and strove to banish it from his mind as a temptation of the devil.