“Vicomte, who and what is your German count?” asked Vane. “A solemn pedant,” answered the lively Vicomte,--“a German count, que voulez-vous de plus?” CHAPTER VII. A LITTLE later Graham found himself alone amongst the crowd. Attracted by the sound of music, he had strayed into one of the rooms whence it came, and in which, though his range of acquaintance at Paris was for an Englishman large and somewhat miscellaneous, he recognized no familiar countenance. A lady was playing the pianoforte--playing remarkably well--with accurate science, with that equal lightness and strength of finger which produces brilliancy of execution; but to appreciate her music one should be musical one’s self. It wanted the charm that fascinates the uninitiated. The guests in the room were musical connoisseurs,--a class with whom Graham Vane had nothing in common. Even if he had been more capable of enjoying the excellence of the player’s performance, the glance he directed towards her would have sufficed to chill him into indifference. She was not young, and with prominent features and puckered skin, was twisting her face into strange sentimental grimaces, as if terribly overcome by the beauty and pathos of her own melodies. To add to Vane’s displeasure, she was dressed in a costume wholly antagonistic to his views of the becoming,--in a Greek jacket of gold and scarlet, contrasted by a Turkish turban. Muttering “What she-mountebank have we here?” he sank into a chair behind the door, and fell into an absorbed revery. From this he was aroused by the cessation of the music and the hum of subdued approbation by which it was followed. Above the hum swelled the imposing voice of M. Louvier as he rose from a seat on the other side of the piano, by which his bulky form had been partially concealed. “Bravo! perfectly played! excellent! Can we not persuade your charming young countrywoman to gratify us even by a single song?” Then turning aside and addressing some one else invisible to Graham he said, “Does that tyrannical doctor still compel you to silence, Mademoiselle?” A voice so sweetly modulated that if there were any sarcasm in the words it was lost in the softness of pathos, answered, “Nay, Monsieur Louvier, he rather overtasks the words at my command in thankfulness to those who like yourself, so kindly regard me as something else than a singer.”