'Because I do not love you,' she said.
He dropped her hand and sat glaring at her. 'You are thinking of last night!' he muttered.
She shook her head. 'I am not,' she said simply. 'I suppose that if I loved you, that and worse would go for nothing. But I do not.'
Her calmness, her even tone went to his heart and chilled it. He winced, and uttering a low cry turned from her and hid his face in his hands.
'Why not?' he said thickly, after an interval. 'Why can you not love me?'
'Why does the swallow nest here and not there?' the Countess answered gently. 'I do not know. Why did my father love a foreigner and not one of his own people? I do not know. Neither do I know why I do not love you. Unless,' she added, with rising colour, 'it is that you are young, younger than I am; and a woman turns naturally to one older than herself.'
Her words seemed to point so surely to General Tzerclas that the young man ground his teeth together. But he had not spirit to turn and reproach her then; and after remaining silent for some minutes, he rose.
'Good-bye,' he said in a broken voice. And he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.
The Countess started. The words, the action impressed her disagreeably. 'You are not going--away I mean?' she said.
'No,' he answered slowly. 'But things are--changed. When we meet again it will be as----'