The Count, who, with the companions of his youth, had lost what little religious sentiment he may have once possessed, regarded this trait in his wife with great disfavor; but neither threats nor prayers effected a change, and he finally allowed her to follow her own inclinations.
While the union was not one of the happiest, there were fewer altercations than might have been reasonably expected from the thoroughly opposite natures of man and wife. Louise, with all her faults, was a loving wife, and when her husband's temper was ruffled, her smiles and caresses, her appealing looks and tender glances, won him back to serenity.
The supper, therefore, was not as gloomy as the stormy introduction indicated. Both had much to tell each other, for a great deal had occurred during their eight months' separation, and it was late when they left the table.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Wallace's "Russia."
CHAPTER VIII.
AN UNWILLING CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY.
On the following morning the Count bethought himself of the Jewish lad, and the reflection that he had harbored one of the despised people on his estates for an entire night, rekindled his anger against the whole race. He rang for Ivan and strode impatiently up and down his well-furnished library until the coachman appeared.
"Tell the Countess that I await her here, and then bring me the boy you found on the road!"