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280 to do some work there. He succeeded in a fashion, but it seemed dreary—doubly dreary when he reflected what it might have been. Suddenly he ceased to visit the Countess; a long time passed without her seeing him. She met him at another house, and had some remarkable words with him. She covered him with reproaches that were doubtless deserved, but he made her an answer that caused her to open her eyes and flush, and admit afterward that, for a clever woman, she had been a great fool. "Don't you see," he said—"can't you imagine that I cared for you only by contrast? You took the trouble to kill the contrast, and with it you killed everything else. For a constancy I prefer this!" And he tapped his poetic brow. He never saw the Countess again. I rather regret now that I said at the beginning of my story that it was not to be a fairy tale; otherwise I should be at liberty to say, with harmonious geniality, that if Benvolio missed Scholastica he missed the Countess also, and led an extremely fretful and unproductive life, until one day he sailed for the antipodes and brought Scholastica home. After this he began to produce again; only, many people said, his poetry had become dismally dull. But excuse me; I am writing as if this were a fairy tale!