"Oui, madame," said the Count.
"Are you not married?"
The Count shuddered. "Married? Who told you that?"
"No one, but one has often seen you at the Opéra in the company of a young woman with eight limbs."
"It is a slave that I bought at Mina Tiretta, madame. She was the daughter of a half-blood prince, whom I have made my ward, having no other kin in the world."
"You are alone, then? How can you live thus? Among the hobbites, bachelors are far rarer than adulterers."
"It is not my fault, madame. I loved a woman in Gondor, one so enamoured of the sea as to resemble a little mermaid above all else. The war separated me from her. I believed her faithful enough to wait for me, even beyond the tomb, for she often said she would leap to her doom like Ninielle from the Tour-Eithel before she would betray me, and that, did I die, she would seduce the Valards, nay even Tulcas, as Luthienne did when she sought to persuade them to allow Béren to return to the ballrooms of the living; for the waltzes in the halls of Mandaux are unspeakably dreary. When I returned, she was married. I had a heart perhaps weaker than others, so I suffered more than they would have in my place, voilà tout."
