But there was this wonderful feature in her work,--that nobody suspected
her; no one, not even her own child. She wanted Henrietta, as little as
the world, to know what she was to her husband; and she taught her not
only to love him as her father, but to respect and admire him as a man
of eminence. Of course, the count was the very last man to suspect any
thing. He might have been told all, and he would have believed nothing.

He fancied he had discovered himself the whole line of proceeding which
his wife had so carefully traced out for him. In the full sincerity
of his heart, he believed he had composed and written out the speeches
which she drew up for him; and the articles for the newspapers, and the
letters, which she dictated, appeared to him all to have sprung from his
own fertile brains. He was even sometimes surprised at the want of good
sense in his wife, and pointed out to her, quite ironically, that
the steps from which she tried hardest to dissuade him were the most
successful he took. But no irony could turn the countess from the path
which she had traced out for herself; nor did she ever allow a word or
even a smile to escape her, that might have betrayed her secret. When
her husband became sarcastic, she bowed her head, and said nothing. But,
the more he gloried in his utter nullity, the more she delighted in
her work, and found ample compensation in the approval of her own
conscience.

The count had been so exceedingly good as to take her when she was
penniless; she owed him the historic name she bore and a large fortune;
but, in return, she had given him, and without his being aware of it,
a position of some eminence. She had made him happy in the only way in
which a small and ordinary man could be made happy,--by gratifying his
vanity.