"Still the same!"
"It is shameful," cried the Italian with warmth; "what has my brother ever done to him, that he should intrigue against the Count in his own court?"
"Intrigue! I think you wrong Lord L'Estrange; he but represented what he believed to be the truth, in defence of a ruined exile."
"And you will not tell me where that exile is, or if his daughter still lives?"
"My dear Marchesa, I have called you friend, therefore, I will not aid L'Estrange to injure you or yours. But I call L'Estrange a friend also; and I cannot violate the trust that—" Audley stopped short, and bit his lip. "You understand me," he resumed, with a genial smile, and took his leave.
The Italian's brows met as her eye followed him; then, as she too rose, that eye encountered Randal's. Each surveyed the other—each felt a certain strange fascination—a sympathy—not of affection, but of intellect.
"That young man has the eye of an Italian," said the Marchesa to herself; and as she passed by him into the ball-room, she turned and smiled.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Continued from page 557, vol. iii.
[9] If, at the date in which Lord L'Estrange held this conversation with Mr. Egerton, Alfred de Musset had written his comedies, we should suspect that his lordship had plagiarized from one of them the whimsical idea that he here vents upon Audley. In repeating it, the author at least cannot escape from the charge of obligation to a writer whose humor, at least, is sufficiently opulent to justify the loan.