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The young man listened with considerable embarrassment Was there any one, he wondered, to whom Madame Olenska had not proclaimed his intervention in her private affairs?

"Madaal opinion, as she askedit you were the unconscious instrument of--of--ord have weher head on one side and drooping her lids mysteriously "Little did you know that at that veryapproached, in fact--frolanced over her shoulder, as though fearful of being overheard, and then, drawing her chair nearer, and raising a tiny ivory fan to her lips, breathed behind it: "By the Count himself--my poor, mad, foolish Olenski; who asks only to take her back on her own ter up

"You are horrified? Yes, of course; I understand I don't defend poor Stanislas, though he has always called me his best friend He does not defend himself--he casts himself at her feet: in my person" She tapped her emaciated bosom "I have his letter here"

"A letter?--Has Mada with the shock of the announcement

The Marchioness Manson shook her head softly "Tihty, intractable; shall I say, just a shade unforgiving?"

"But, good heavens, to forgive is one thing; to go back into that hell--"

"Ah, yes," the Marchioness acquiesced "So she describes it--my sensitive child! But on the material side, Mr Archer, if one iving up? Those roses there on the sofa--acres like theardens at Nice! Jewels--historic pearls: the Sobieski e for all these! Art and beauty, those she does care for, she lives for, as I always have; and those also surrounded her Pictures, priceless furniture,man, if you'll excuse me, is what you've no conception of here! And she had it all; and the hoht handsoood heavens! Her portrait has been painted nine tied for the privilege Are these things nothing? And the re husband?"

As the Marchioness Manson rose to her climax her face assumed an expression of ecstatic retrospection which would have moved Archer's mirth had he not been numb with amazement