In a few days he received a letter from the countess. It was a mere line, incidentally telling him that she had not established herself at Paris, but at Baden-Baden; but it was principally filled with pretty thanks for his “heroic chivalry.” The expression had seemed a trifle too strong at the time, even to Austin May. But when he arrived at Baden-Baden, and saw how charming the countess was in her now elaborate _entourage_, he made allowances. Man is generous by nature, especially to beautiful heroines with husbands in Siberian mines. May thought of the hapless Polacco de Valski as turning out polyform lead-pencils by the ribboned bunch, and marking them BBBB, and then, alternately, HHHH. May had been much exercised in mind how to explain his sudden trip to Baden-Baden, and had devised many plausible reasons for going, all of which proved superfluous. The countess did not seem in the least surprised. He found her weeping over a letter. “See,” said she, “it is from Serge.” “The d---- Really?” said May. The countess folded the letter, kissed it, and replaced it in her bosom. This was an extremely embarrassing proceeding to May, and he kept some time silent. With his Anglo-Saxon awkwardness at social comedy, he thought that Polacco might as well be kept out of the case. “Shall we go for a drive?” said she, at last. “Delighted,” said Austin May. The drives about Baden-Baden are charming. You wind for miles upon the brows of castle-crowned hills, overhanging the gay little valley; and then you plunge into the ancient gloom of the Black Forest, and the eerie pines, and a delicious shiver of wildness and solitude, all the time with the feeling that the Kursaal and its band are close at hand, should the silence grow oppressive. There, if your heart do trouble you, you can look at pretty women; and, if the eternal verities beset your spirit, gamble for napoleons. The countess drove two little cream-colored ponies, and encouraged May to smoke his cigarette most charmingly.... Bah! why go on with it? Even now, over the Eclipse claret, May could not but admit that he had spent in Baden-Baden three of the most charming weeks of his life. He would not mind passing three such weeks again, could he be sure they would be _just_ three such weeks, and that they would end at the same time. But, _que diable!_ because the play is amusing, we do not wish to stay in the theatre forever. And May nervously glanced at the window, as he thought he heard the sound of carriage-wheels again. He had smoked too much strong tobacco, probably; but, after all, it was even now only the middle of the afternoon--not sunset, or near it. He might have to come to stronger drugs than tobacco, to stronger deeds than tobacco-smoke, ere the evening was over. Hence that arsenal with which he had provided himself.