“Do you? That is very sweet. Let me try.” But when he had played the prelude to a song he stopped short. His hands dropped from the key-board. “I cannot,” he said, turning to her with eyes full of unspoken words. “I am under a spell. Will you send for Madam Susie, and let me talk business?” Clara assented, and a minute after Susie entered. “Oh, madam,” he said, holding her hand, “I have the weight of Atlas on my shoulders;” and placing her in an arm-chair, he took a seat near her. Susie looked at him tenderly, like a divine little motherly soul as she was, and going to him, said, “You are tired. Now, make yourself perfectly at ease while you talk to me. I wish you would lie down on the sofa here, and light your cigar.” “I wish I could,” he said; “but somehow I cannot lounge in a lady’s presence—not even when she desires it. It comes from my European breeding; but I will take a cigar, if it is not disagreeable to you.” “Papa always smokes here,” said Clara, “so you need have no hesitation. We both rather like the odor of a nice cigar. I am very used to it, you know——” Like a flash it entered the count’s mind that Dr. Delano was the cause of her preoccupation; and strange as it may seem, this was almost the first moment that he realized her position with regard to that man. He had never thought of her before as bound to any one, though he knew, of course, the fact of her marriage. He gave himself, however, no time to think of it, but commenced at once to “talk business,” as he had called it. “You know,” he said, “the Social Palace is passed the Rubicon, and with me there is no turning back. To-morrow there will be fifty men at work on a temporary building for the brick-making. The chief of that part of the work, a man of immense executive ability, I sent here the day after I left. He is at the hotel, and has done good work since he was engaged. In three months we can commence the walls; but long before that, the subterranean air-galleries, cellars, sewers, and so forth, will be built. I have the general plan, which I brought from Guise, but as to details I am less fortunate; besides, you know I am to make this on a somewhat larger scale, though the original accommodates fifteen hundred. I put the limit at two thousand for this. I want you ladies and the doctor to go with me to-morrow and fix the exact location and position of the palace, the manufactories, the gardens and pleasure-grounds, and the nursery and conservatories.” Susie’s eyes gleamed as he talked; when he paused, she jumped up and walked the floor in excitement. “Oh, this is glorious, Clara! See what a magnificent thing it is to have capital—no, not that, but to have the soul to use it nobly for the amelioration of honest, laboring people.” “You want to kiss me, Madam Susie. I see it in your eyes,” the count said, laughing.