"You have hardly had time to have a good look at him," added Count Helion.
"I looked at him this evening with all my eyes, with all my soul. I would have sat up all night to look at him. But he got up and turned his back on me. He has no eyes for anybody but my aunt."
"Did you speak together, you two?"
"Yes," she said, "he sat down by me and all those witches stared as if he had been making up to a monster. Am I a monster? He too looked at me as if I had been one."
"Was he rude to you?" asked the Count de Montevesso.
"He was as insolent as all the people I have seen since we came to this town. His heart was black as of all the rest of them. He was gentle to me as one is gentle to an old beggar for the sake of charity. Oh, how I hated him."
"Well, then," said Count de Montevesso in a harsh unsympathetic tone, "you may safely despise him."
Clelia threw herself half out of bed on the neck of Count Helion, who preserved an unsympathetic rigidity though he did not actually repulse her wild and vehement caress.
"Oh, dearest uncle of mine," she whispered ardently! into his ear, "he is handsome! I must have him for myself."
There was a knocking at the door. Count Helion tore the bare arms from his neck and pushed the girl back into bed.