A Fool and His Money

by George Barr McCutcheon

"Thank you," I said, shaking my head; "but it is quite all right. Britton attended to it this morning. It is good of you to think about it, Countess. It isn't—"

"I thought about it all night," she said, and I could believe her after the light from the windows had fallen upon her face. There were dark circles under her eyes and she was quite pale. Her eyes seemed abnormally large and brilliant. "I am so sorry not to be able to do one little thing for you. Will you not let me dress it after this?"

I coloured. "Really, it—it is a most trifling bruise," I explained, "just a little black and blue, that's all. Pray do not think of it again."

"You will never let me do anything for you," she said. Her eyes were velvety. "It isn't fair. I have exacted so much from you, and—"

"And I have been most brutal and unfeeling in many of the things I have said to you," said I, despairingly. "I am ashamed of the nasty wounds I have given you. My state of repentance allows you to exact whatsoever you will of me, and, when all is said and done, I shall still be your debtor. Can you—will you pardon the coarse opinions of a conceited ass? I assure you I am not the man I was when you first encountered me."

She smiled. "For that matter, I am not the same woman I was, Mr. Smart. You have taught me three things, one of which I may mention: the subjection of self. That, with the other two, has made a new Aline Titus of me. I hope you may be pleased with the—transfiguration."

"I wish you were Aline Titus," I said, struck by the idea.

"You may at least be sure that I shall not remain the Countess Tarnowsy long, Mr. Smart," she said, with a very puzzling expression in her eyes.

My heart sank. "But I remember hearing you say not so very long ago that you would never marry again," I railed.

She regarded me rather oddly for a moment. "I am very, very glad that you are such a steady, sensible, practical man. A vapid, impressionable youth, during this season of propinquity, might have been so foolish as to fall in love with me, and that would have been too bad."