"No matter what I know," the Countess said, with a certain petulance, swift and lovable—"tell it me."
So I said obediently, yet as one that means his words to the full—
"I have been happier than ever I thought to be this morning!"
"Lucia!" she said softly—"say Lucia!"
"Lucia!" I answered to her will; yet I thought she did not well to try me so hard.
Then her brother came up briskly and heartily, like one who had been a-foot many hours, asking us how we did.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CRIMSON SHAWL
Henry Fenwick and the Count went shooting. He came and asked my leave as one who is uncertain of an answer. And I gave it guiltily, saying to myself that anything which took his mind off Madame Von Eisenhagen was certainly good. But there leaped in my heart a great hope that, in what remained of the day, I might again see the Countess.
I was grievously disappointed. For though I lounged all the afternoon in the pleasant spaces by the lake, only the servants, of the great empty hotel passed at rare intervals. Of Lucia I saw nothing, till the Count and Henry passed in with their guns and found me with my book.