finessing,' he said.

"Although this answer warranted my belief that Gobseck would act
fairly even if the counter-deed were lost, I resolved to go to see the
Count. I pleaded a business engagement, and we separated.

"I went straight to the Rue du Helder, and was shown into a room where
the Countess sat playing with her children. When she heard my name,
she sprang up and came to meet me, then she sat down and pointed
without a word to a chair by the fire. Her face wore the inscrutable
mask beneath which women of the world conceal their most vehement
emotions. Trouble had withered that face already. Nothing of its
beauty now remained, save the marvelous outlines in which its
principal charm had lain.

"'It is essential, madame, that I should speak to M. le Comte----"

"'If so, you would be more favored than I am,' she said, interrupting
me. 'M. de Restaud will see no one. He will hardly allow his doctor to
come, and will not be nursed even by me. When people are ill, they
have such strange fancies! They are like children, they do not know
what they want.'

"'Perhaps, like children, they know very well what they want.'

"The Countess reddened. I almost repented a thrust worthy of Gobseck.
So, by way of changing the conversation, I added, 'But M. de Restaud
cannot possibly lie there alone all day, madame.'

"'His oldest boy is with him,' she said.