to believe that her glance confers honor wherever it falls. "I'm sure I did her no harm. She's a good little creature, and it's not her fault if she's so unfortunately plain." Benvolio looked at her intently, but he saw that he would learn nothing from her that she did not choose to tell. As he stood there he was amazed to find how natural or at least how easy it was to disbelieve her. She had been with the young girl: that accounted for anything; it accounted abundantly for Scholastica's painful constraint. What had the Countess said and done? what infernal trick had she played upon the poor girl's simplicity? He helplessly wondered, but he felt that she could be trusted to hit her mark. She had done him the honor to be jealous, and to alienate Scholastica she had invented some infernally plausible charge against himself. He felt sick and angry, and for a week he treated his companion with the coldest civility. The charm was broken, the cup of pleasure was drained. This remained no secret to the Countess, who was profoundly vexed at her own indiscretion. At last she abruptly told Benvolio that the test had failed; they must separate; he would please her by taking his leave. He asked no second permission, but bade her farewell in the midst of her little retinue, and went journeying out of Italy with no other company than his thick-swarming memories and projects.
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