She throws herself back in her chair with a little laugh. "Cruel! You had better amusement than my company."
"Amusement! It is not that," he says, with an ardent glance from his dark, flashing eyes. "You are cold—fickle. You are breaking my heart for the sake of that American boy."
She interrupts him with pretended indignation. "Count, you forget yourself! I permit no one to arraign my actions."
"Far be it from me to do that. I would not offend you for worlds, madame; but I cannot refrain from expressing my feelings when I see your old friends thrust aside and forgotten, for sake of a beardless youth to whom Fortune has been kinder than to us."
"I do not forget my friends," says Lady Jean, with a quick glance; "and I am only civil to this boy because he is friendless and alone, and I took pity on his solitude."
"Your pity, madame, may be a dangerous favour. To those whom you really compassionate, exclusion would be the greater mercy."
"Every one is not as foolish as yourself, Count," she says with a soft glance.
It is pleasant to hear she is still beautiful—still can play the part of an "apple of discord" to men.
"Because, perhaps, 'every one' has not found your presence what I have found it."
"Hush!" she says softly; "you are talking folly, and you know it. The days are over when I believed in compliments."