"All that you wish shall be done," nodded Maximilian. The pale lady then drank the contents of the glass, half smiling, half shuddering. "I am in a hurry," said the doctor, drawing on his black gloves. "Lie down quietly, Signora, and move as little as possible." Led by black Deborah, who lighted him, he left the room. When the two friends were left alone, they looked at each other for a long time in silence. In the souls of both thoughts were clamorous which each strove to hide from the other. The woman, however, suddenly seized the man's hand and covered it with glowing kisses. "For God's sake," said Maximilian, "do not agitate yourself so, and lie back quietly on the sofa." As Maria fulfilled this wish, he covered her feet carefully with a shawl, which he previously touched with his lips. She probably noticed him, for her eyes winked with contentment, like a happy child's. "Was Mademoiselle Laurence very beautiful?" "If you will not interrupt me, dear friend, and promise to listen quite silently, I will tell you circumstantially all that you wish to know." Smiling in response to Maria's affirmative glance, Maximilian seated himself on the chair which was beside the sofa, and began his story:-- It is now eight years since I travelled to London to become acquainted with the language and the people. Confound the people and their language too! There they take a dozen monosyllables in their mouths, chew them, gnash them, spit them out again, and they call that speaking! Fortunately, they are by nature tolerably taciturn, and though they always gape at us with open mouths, they spare us long conversations. But woe unto us if we fall into the hands of a son of Albion who has made the great tour and learnt French on the Continent. He will use the opportunity to exercise the achieved language, and overwhelm us with questions on all possible subjects. And scarcely is one question answered before he comes out with another about one's age or home or length of one's stay, and with these incessant inquiries he thinks he is entertaining us in the most delightful manner. One of my friends at Paris was perhaps right when he maintained that the English learn their French conversation at the _Bureaux des Passeports_. Their talk is most useful at table, when they carve their colossal roast beef and inquire which cut you like, overdone or underdone, the inside or the brown outside, fat or lean. This roast beef and this roast mutton are the only good things they have. Heaven preserve every Christian man from their sauces, which consist of one part of flour and two of butter, or when the composition aims at a change, of one part of butter and two of flour. Heaven preserve anyone also from their vegetables, which they bring on the table cooked in water, just as God created them. Still more horrible than the cookery of the English are their toasts and _obligato_ speeches, when the table-cloth is taken away and the ladies retire, and