The gentle reproach made me hot with shame. I had no words to answer it. Then she laughed again, bending closer over her frame, in a low joyous note that gradually rose and trilled out sweet as music from a thrush. "And so," she said, "you came all trim and spruce in your fine new clothes to show me what my discourtesy had lost me! What a child you are! And yet," she rose suddenly, her whole face changing, "and yet, are you a child? Would God I knew!" She ended with a passionate cry, clasping her hands together upon her breast; but before I could make head or tail of her meaning she was half-way through another mood. "Ah!" she cried, "you have brought my courtesy back with you." I had not noticed until then that I still held the crust in my hand. "You shall swallow it as a penance." "Madame!" I laughed. "Hush! you shall eat it. Yes, yes!" with a pretty imperious stamp of the foot. "Now! Before you speak a word!" I obeyed her, but with some difficulty, for the crust was very dry. "You see," she said, "courtesy is not always so tasteful a morsel. It sticks in the throat at times;" and crossing to a sideboard, she filled a goblet from a decanter of canary and brought it to me. "You will pledge me first," I entreated. Her face grew serious, and she balanced the cup doubtfully in her hand. "Of a truth," she said, "of a truth I will." She raised it slowly to her lips; but at that moment the door opened. "Oh!" cried Mademoiselle Durette, with a start of surprise, "I fancied that Mr. Buckler had gone," and she was for whipping out of the room again, but Ilga called to her. The astonishment of the Frenchwoman made one point clear to me concerning which I felt some curiosity. I mean that 'twas not she who had set the hall-door open for my return. "Clemence!" said the Countess, setting down the wine untasted, as I noticed with regret, "will you bid Otto come to me? I ransacked Mr. Buckler's rooms, and it is only fair that I should show him my poor treasures in return." She handed a key to Otto, and bade him unlock a Japan cabinet which stood in a corner. He drew out a tray heaped up with curiosities, medals and trinkets, and bringing it over, laid it on a table in the window. "I have bought them all since I came to London. You shall tell me whether I have been robbed." "You come to the worst appraiser in the world," said I, "for these ornaments tell me nothing of their value though much of your industry." "I have a great love for these trifles," said she, though her action seemed to belie her words, for she tossed and rattled them hither and thither upon the tray with rapid jerks of her fingers which would have made a virtuoso shiver. "They hint so much of bygone times, and tell so provokingly little." "Their example, at all events, affords a lesson in discretion," I laughed. "Which our poor sex is too trustful to learn, and yours too distrustful to forget."