the morning. But he could make
no use of it on his own unsupported testimony--even if he really
ventured to try the experiment--which need excite in me the slightest
apprehension on Pesca's account.

"I grant your reservation," he replied, after considering the question
gravely for a minute or two. "It is not worth dispute--the letter
shall be destroyed when it comes into my hands."

He rose, as he spoke, from the chair in which he had been sitting
opposite to me up to this time. With one effort he appeared to free
his mind from the whole pressure on it of the interview between us thus
far. "Ouf!" he cried, stretching his arms luxuriously, "the skirmish
was hot while it lasted. Take a seat, Mr. Hartright. We meet as
mortal enemies hereafter--let us, like gallant gentlemen, exchange
polite attentions in the meantime. Permit me to take the liberty of
calling for my wife."

He unlocked and opened the door. "Eleanor!" he called out in his deep
voice. The lady of the viperish face came in "Madame Fosco--Mr.
Hartright," said the Count, introducing us with easy dignity. "My
angel," he went on, addressing his wife, "will your labours of packing
up allow you time to make me some nice strong coffee? I have writing
business to transact with Mr. Hartright--and I require the full
possession of my intelligence to do justice to myself."

Madame Fosco bowed her head twice--once sternly to me, once
submissively to her husband, and glided out of the room.

The Count walked to a writing-table near the window, opened his desk,
and took from it several quires of paper and a bundle of quill pens.
He scattered the pens about the table, so that they might lie ready in
all directions to be taken up when wanted, and then cut the paper into
a heap of narrow slips, of the form used by professional writers for
the press. "I shall make this a remarkable document," he said, looking
at me over his shoulder. "Habits of literary composition are perfectly
familiar to me. One of the rarest of all the intellectual
accomplishments that a man can possess is the grand faculty of
arranging his ideas. Immense privilege! I possess it. Do you?"

He marched backwards and forwards in the room, until the coffee
appeared, humming to himself, and marking the places at which obstacles
occurred in the arrangement of his ideas, by striking his forehead from
time to time with the palm of his hand. The enormous audacity with
which he seized on the situa