In the meantime the Count of Nullepart had filled his cup out of the last of the numerous bottles of wine to which we had yielded ourselves, and he now carried it across the room with a wonderful air.
“Madam,” he said, proffering this beaker with an indescribable grace, “if I may serve you, you will make me happy.”
“I thank you, friend,” she said, accepting the goblet, and sipping the wine without any hesitation at all.
“With your permission, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart, “I will go forth and see to it that your horse is bedded worthily and hath a supper of oats.”
“Do so, friend, and I will thank you for your service.”
The little lady spoke with the sweet insolence of one who is accustomed to be served.
While the Count of Nullepart was away on this errand of courtesy, I was fain to cudgel my brains to find out who this fair stranger might be. That a young gentlewoman should ride into Toledo at midnight without attendance must have been an unheard-of matter. Yet again, her quality was not in anywise declared in her dusty and rumpled habit; but in its despite, her air, her bearing, the adorable beauty of her countenance, made her the most enchanting figure upon whom it had ever been my hap to set my eyes. To have encountered two such persons in a single day as the Count of Nullepart and this lady was a clear proof that fortune was not so entirely unpropitious as she seemed.
When the Count of Nullepart returned, which he did very soon, he set himself to bestir the landlord in the matter of the lady’s supper; and he besought her to accept a share of our table, which was the most favourably situated in the room.
The lady accepted every office that the count rendered her with the most charming and easy complaisance in the world, and when she came and took a seat with us, I observed with a thrill of delight that, fair as she looked from a distance, when she came near she appeared still more enchanting. Every line in the youthful face was moulded in the most sensitive manner. When a serving-maid had brought her supper, her eyes fell on the flageolet that lay on the table. She gave it to me, and said,—
“Play a melody. It will amuse me while I eat.”