The Count took a step back. "Madame, I ask you humbly to excuse me; I never eat Brandiboucque, for they have the reputation of lacing their champignons with insalubrious weeds."
Rosédès let the mushrooms fall with a sigh.
"Monsieur le comte," said Rosédès, regarding Monte Fato with a supplicant eye, "there is a touching Haradric custom that makes eternal friends of those who share herbs and stewed rabbit."
"I know it, madame," replied the Count. "But we are in Arnor, not Harade, and there are no eternal friendships any more than there is herbs and stewed rabbit."
"But we are friends, no?" said the Countess palpitating as she gazed into the Count's Eye and almost convulsively seized his arm.
The blood rushed to the Count's heart, and then invaded his face, while his Eye swam for a few moments as if he were stricken with bedazzlement.
"Certainly we are friends, madame," he replied. "Why would we not be?"
Mme. de Pérégrin thanked the Count, although the tone in which he had spoken was far from being that which she had desired. They walked in silence.
"Monsieur, have you much suffered?" asked the Countess at length.
