"Give me some of your courage," sighed the count. "Let me drink confidence from the depths of your fearless, flashing eyes, my angel."
"Angel!" said Arabella, with a mocking laugh. "If so, call me your fallen angel; for when I took the unfathomable leap which leads from innocence to guilt, your arms were outstretched to receive me. But pshaw! what bootless retrospection! I am here, Carl, true as steel; ready to stand or fall at your side. Feel my hand, it is warm—feel my pulse, it beats as evenly as though I had never slept a night out of Eden."
"You are a heroine, Arabella. The magnificence around us affrights my cowardly soul; while you—surely I heard your silvery laugh when I entered this room awhile ago."
"To be sure you did, faint-hearted knight of the card-table! I laughed for joy when I thought of former misery; and compared it with present splendor; the more so, that I am the bold architect who raised the edifice of my own fortune. We need not be grateful to Heaven for our luck, Carl, for we are not in favor with the celestial aristocracy; we have no one to thank for our blessings but ourselves."
"And will have no one to thank but ourselves when ruin overtakes us."
"Possibly," said Arabella, with a shrug. "But remember that we have already been shipwrecked, and have not only saved ourselves, but have brought glorious spoils with us to shore. So away with your misgivings! they do not become the career you have chosen."
"Right, Arabella, right. They do not, indeed! But promise me that I shall always have you at my side to share my fate, whatever it bring forth."
"I promise," said she, raising her starry eyes to his, and clasping with her small, firm hand his cold and clammy fingers. "By the memory of Rome, and the dark-rolling waters of the Tiber, from which you rescued me that night, I promise. And now let us pledge each other in a draught from the depths of the Styx. Look around you, Carl, and realize that all this magnificence is ours, and to-night I play the hostess to the proud aristocracy of Vienna. But one question before the curtain rises. How goes the affair with the banker's lovely Rachel?"
"Gloriously! She loves me, for she has consented to receive me day after to-morrow, during her father's absence."
"Go, then, and the blessings of your fallen angel go with you! Play your game cautiously, and let us hear the chink of Herr Eskeles Flies' gold near the rustling of our fragile bank-notes. And now go. Return in half an hour, that I may receive you in presence of our fastidious guests. They might not approve of this tete-a-tete, for you are said to be a sad profligate, Carl!"