But I promise you I will practice suave manners and a court bow for the countess when I can spare time to call upon her.

In the meanwhile I trust to you to make her a suitable and graceful apology for my non-appearance." Ferrari's puzzled and vexed expression gave way to a smile--finally he laughed aloud.

"Upon my word!" he exclaimed, gayly, "you are really a remarkable man, conte! You are extremely cynical! I am almost inclined to believe that you positively hate women." "Oh, by no means! Nothing so strong as hatred," I said, coolly, as I peeled and divided a fine peach as a finish to my morning's meal.
"Hatred is a strong passion--to hate well one must first have loved.
No, no--I do not find women worth hating--I am simply indifferent to them.

They seem to me merely one of the burdens imposed on man's existence--graceful, neatly packed, light burdens in appearance, but in truth, terribly heavy and soul-crushing." "Yet many accept such burdens gayly!" interrupted Ferrari, with a smile.

I glanced at him keenly.
"Men seldom attain the mastery over their own passions," I replied; "they are in haste to seize every apparent pleasure that comes in their way, Led by a hot animal impulse which they call love, they snatch at a woman's beauty as a greedy school-boy snatches ripe fruit--and when possessed, what is it worth?
Here is its emblem"-- and I held up the stone of the peach I had just eaten--"the fruit is devoured--what remains?
A stone with a bitter kernel." Ferrari shrugged his shoulders.
"I cannot agree with you, count," he said; "but I will not argue with you.