"Your tutor, Count—by the way, what is his name?"
"Well, he's hardly my tutor, you see."
Here cries from the Burgravine: "A French gentleman!—so charming a person! Nay, Cousin Kielmansegg, I flatter myself I have a good memory, especially for anything French. M. de la Viole, wasn't it?"
"Yes," from Steven, grunting uneasily, "something of that sort."
"Quite an elderly man," hastens to add the Burgravine, with a quick look at her husband.
"Try this Burgundy, Clos-Vougeot, the Emperor's favourite," says the Burgrave, and laughs.
He drinks a good deal of Burgundy himself, does the Chancellor; and gets a fiery countenance: but not a sparkle into the little grey eyes.
"How long may it be since you left Austria, my dear young friend?"
"Oh—years," blurts Steven.
Of course he ought to have looked to the Burgravine for his cue. But, the devil fly away with it, he does not take kindly to these deceits! The Burgrave's gaze shifts suddenly to his wife. The glass trembles in her little hand. She is obliged to lay it down; but her voice does not falter, she is quite ready: "Years? Is it possible? Nay, cousin, have we both grown so old since last we met? But no doubt, in that cold, dull England, the time hung mighty heavy with you. It seems years to you, but—then we corresponded—at least, when I say we, I mean my mother, who loves you as a son."