It was clear that all the guests experienced the same feeling as they went into the dining-room. They were wondering what strange force had brought them together in this house; and yet, puzzled and even, in some cases, nervous though they were, they would not have wished to be anywhere else. Recent connections, the count's unusual and isolated situation, and his unknown, almost fabulous fortune, should have required the men to be cautious and have deterred the women from entering a house where there was no one of their own sex to receive them. Yet the men had been prepared to discard caution and the women, custom: curiosity had pricked them with its irresistible spur and overcome all other feelings.

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