grown white in the exercise of his functions is not a boy; you will be
understood by him to whom every passion has been confided for nearly
fifty years now, and who weighs in his hands the ponderous heart of
kings and princes. If he is stern under his stole, in the presence of
your flowers he will be as tender as they are, and as indulgent as his
Divine Master.'

"I left the Countess at midnight; she was apparently calm, but
depressed, and had some secret purpose which no perspicacity could
guess. I found the Count a few paces off, in the Rue Saint-Maur. Drawn
by an irresistible attraction, he had quitted the spot on the
Boulevards where we had agreed to meet.

"'What a night my poor child will go through!' he exclaimed, when I
had finished my account of the scene that had just taken place.
'Supposing I were to go to her!' he added; 'supposing she were to see
me suddenly?'

"'At this moment she is capable of throwing herself out of the
window,' I replied. 'The Countess is one of those Lucretias who could
not survive any violence, even if it were done by a man into whose
arms she could throw herself.'

"'You are young,' he answered; 'you do not know that in a soul tossed
by such dreadful alternatives the will is like waters of a lake lashed
by a tempest; the wind changes every instant, and the waves are driven
now to one shore, now to the other. During this night the chances are
quite as great that on seeing me Honorine might rush into my arms as
that she would throw herself out of the window.'