A restless week followed. He saw the Countess de Valska every day; but there was something uncomfortable in their relations—a certain savor of an unaccepted sacrifice, of an offering burned in vain.
The countess would not let him seek the Austrian foe on her own behalf, nor yet bedew the soil of Poland with his blood; and it was very difficult to say what he was to do for her in Baden-Baden, or, for matter of that, what the noble Polacco de Valski could do in Siberia. Poor Serge!
Yes, poor Serge! On the eighth day, Austin May, calling on the countess, found her in a lovely négligé, dissolved in tears. (He had been refused her door, at first, but finally, after a little pressing, had been admitted.) The countess did not look up when he entered; and Austin stood there, twisting his hat in sympathy, and looking at her. Suddenly she lifted her head, and transfixed his blue eyes with her dewy black ones.
“Dead!” said she.
“What?” responded May, anxiously. “Poland? Ital——”
“No, no!” she cried. “Serge—Serge!”
“Your husband?” cried he—“the Count Polacco——”
The countess dropped her lovely head in a shower of tears, as when a thick-leaved tree is shaken by the wind, just after rain.
“He has been dead a year and a half,” she moaned.
“A year and a half?”