"Must I promise?"
"Certainly not, there is no compulsion; but your promise is the only condition on which I will speak to you again."
I hesitated for a moment; but how could she possibly tell? The Countess would scarcely have admitted this little romance to anyone; and the mask in the La Vallière costume could not possibly know who the masked domino beside her was.
"I consent," I said, "I promise."
"You must promise on the honor of a gentleman."
"Well, I do; on the honor of a gentleman."
"Then this lady is the Countess de St. Alyre."
I was unspeakably surprised; I was disconcerted; but I remembered my promise, and said: "The Countess de St. Alyre is, unquestionably, the lady to whom I hoped for an introduction tonight; but I beg to assure you, also on the honor of a gentleman, that she has not the faintest imaginable suspicion that I was seeking such an honor, nor, in all probability, does she remember that such a person as I exists. I had the honor to render her and the Count a trifling service, too trifling, I fear, to have earned more than an hour's recollection."
"The world is not so ungrateful as you suppose; or if it be, there are, nevertheless, a few hearts that redeem it. I can answer for the Countess de St. Alyre, she never forgets a kindness. She does not show all she feels; for she is unhappy, and cannot."
"Unhappy! I feared, indeed, that might be. But for all the rest that you are good enough to suppose, it is but a flattering dream."
"I told you that I am the Countess's friend, and being so I must know something of her character; also, there are confidences between us, and I may know more than you think of those trifling services of which you suppose the recollection is so transitory."
I was becoming more and more interested. I was as wicked as other young men, and the heinousness of such a pursuit was as nothing, now that self-love and all the passions that mingle in such a romance were roused. The image of the beautiful Countess had now again quite superseded the pretty counterpart of La Vallièe, who was before me. I would have given a great deal to hear, in solemn earnest, that she did remember the champion who, for her sake, had thrown himself before the saber of an enraged dragoon, with only a cudgel in his hand, and conquered.
"You say the Countess is unhappy," said I. "What causes her unhappiness?"
"Many things. Her husband is old, jealous, and tyrannical. Is not that enough? Even when relieved from his society, she is lonely."