nature, and instinctively I bring a spirit of analysis to the business
that I transact in the interest of others, when human passions are
called into lively play. Now, I have often noticed, and always with
new wonder, that two antagonists almost always divine each other's
inmost thoughts and ideas. Two enemies sometimes possess a power of
clear insight into mental processes, and read each other's minds as
two lovers read in either soul. So when we came together, the Countess
and I, I understood at once the reason of her antipathy for me,
disguised though it was by the most gracious forms of politeness and
civility. I had been forced to be her confidant, and a woman cannot
but hate the man before whom she is compelled to blush. And she on her
side knew that if I was the man in whom her husband placed confidence,
that husband had not as yet given up his fortune.

"I will spare you the conversation, but it abides in my memory as one
of the most dangerous encounters in my career. Nature had bestowed on
her all the qualities which, combined, are irresistibly fascinating;
she could be pliant and proud by turns, and confiding and coaxing in
her manner; she even went so far as to try to subjugate me. It was a
failure. As I took my leave of her, I caught a gleam of hate and rage
in her eyes that made me shudder. We parted enemies. She would fain
have crushed me out of existence; and for my own part, I felt pity for
her, and for some natures pity is the deadliest of insults. This
feeling pervaded the last representations I put before her; and when I
left her, I left, I think, dread in the depths of her soul, by
declaring that, turn which way she would, ruin lay inevitably before
her.

"'If I were to see M. le Comte, your children's property at any rate
would----'