superb disdain in his tone, as of a man who never missed anything.
"How should I know?" cried Phaulcon, with petulant impatience. "We fired half a dozen balls at him, the man fell dead, never stirred, never breathed; who on the face of the earth could imagine he was going to get up again?"
"Carissimo," said Vane, with soft persuasion. "Why will you persist in that most deleterious habit of trusting to chance, and satisfying yourself with 'appearances' and with 'beliefs?' Nothing more fatal. Always make sure. Just a farewell plunge of an inch of steel into the aorta, and you are always certain."
The picture-like beauty of Phaulcon's face reddened with a momentary flush, and he tossed back his long hair.
"Parbleu! one is not an assassin?"
"Since when have you discovered that?"
The flush grew darker on Count Conrad's forehead; he moved restlessly under the irony, and drank down a draught of red fiery Roussillon without tasting it more than if it had been water. Then he laughed; the same careless musical laughter with which he had made the requiem over a violet—a laugh which belonged at once to the
