yourself.”
“Perhaps you never before noticed him?”
“What a question—so truly French! Do you not know that we Italians have eyes only for the man we love?”
“True,” replied Franz.
“All I can say is,” continued the countess, taking up the lorgnette, and directing it toward the box in question, “that the gentleman, whose history I am unable to furnish, seems to me as though he had just been dug up; he looks more like a corpse permitted by some friendly gravedigger to quit his tomb for a while, and revisit this earth of ours, than anything human. How ghastly pale he is!”
“Oh, he is always as colorless as you now see him,” said Franz.
“Then you know him?” almost screamed the countess. “Oh, pray do, for heaven’s sake, tell us all about—is he a vampire, or a resuscitated corpse, or what?”