"How I should like to know the author! Who can he be—can you guess?"
"Not I. Some old pedant in spectacles."
"I think not—I am sure not. Here beats a heart I have ever sighed to find, and never found."
"Oh, naïve enfant!" cried the Count; "comme son imagination s'égare en rêves enchantés. And to think that, while you talk like an Arcadian, you are dressed like a princess."
"Ah, I forgot—the Austrian ambassador's. I shall not go to-night. This book unfits me for the artificial world."
"Just as you will, my sister. I shall go. I dislike the man, and he me; but ceremonies before men!"
"You are going to the Austrian Embassy?" said Randal. "I too shall be there. We shall meet." And he took his leave.
"I like your young friend prodigiously," said the Count, yawning. "I am sure that he knows of the lost birds, and will stand to them like a pointer, if I can but make it his interest to do so. We shall see."