“My Lord turns to the Baron (who has thus far taken no part in the conversation) and asks him, in a sneering tone, how much longer he proposes to prolong his stay in Venice. The Baron answers quietly, ‘Let us speak plainly to one another, my Lord. If you wish me to leave your house, you have only to say the word, and I go.’ My Lord turns to his wife, and asks if she can support the calamity of her brother’s absence—laying a grossly insulting emphasis on the word ‘brother.’ The Countess preserves her impenetrable composure; nothing in her betrays the deadly hatred with which she regards the titled ruffian who has insulted her. ‘You are master in this house, my Lord,’ is all she says. ‘Do as you please.’ “My Lord looks at his wife; looks at the Baron—and suddenly alters his tone. Does he perceive in the composure of the Countess and her brother something lurking under the surface that threatens him? This is at least certain, he makes a clumsy apology for the language that he has used. (Abject wretch!) “My Lord’s excuses are interrupted by the return of the Courier with the lemons and hot water. “The Countess observes for the first time that the man looks ill. His hands tremble as he places the tray on the table. My Lord orders his Courier to follow him, and make the lemonade in the bedroom. The Countess remarks that the Courier seems hardly capable of obeying his orders. Hearing this, the man admits that he is ill. He, too, is suffering from a cold; he has been kept waiting in a draught at the shop where he bought the lemons; he feels alternately hot and cold, and he begs permission to lie down for a little while on his bed. “Feeling her humanity appealed to, the Countess volunteers to make the lemonade herself. My Lord takes the Courier by the arm, leads him aside, and whispers these words to him: ‘Watch her, and see that she puts nothing into the lemonade; then bring it to me with your own hands; and, then, go to bed, if you like.’ “Without a word more to his wife, or to the Baron, my Lord leaves the room. “The Countess makes the lemonade, and the Courier takes it to his master. “Returning, on the way to his own room, he is so weak, and feels, he says, so giddy, that he is obliged to support himself by the backs of the chairs as he passes them. The Baron, always considerate to persons of low degree, offers his arm. ‘I am afraid, my poor fellow,’ he says, ‘that you are really ill.’ The Courier makes this extraordinary answer: ‘It’s all over with me, Sir: I have caught my death.’ “The Countess is naturally startled. ‘You are not an old man,’ she says, trying to rouse the Courier’s spirits. ‘At your age, catching cold doesn’t surely mean catching your death?’ The Courier fixes his eyes despairingly on the Countess.