"'Well, you can settle yourself this evening,' said the Count, 'for your
possessions, no doubt, are such as all students own, and a hackney coach
will be enough to convey them. To-day we will all three dine together,'
and he looked at my uncle.

"A splendid library opened from the Count's study, and he took us in
there, showing me a pretty little recess decorated with paintings, which
had formerly served, no doubt, as an oratory.

"'This is your cell,' said he. 'You will sit there when you have to work
with me, for you will not be tethered by a chain;' and he explained in
detail the kind and duration of my employment with him. As I listened I
felt that he was a great political teacher.

"It took me about a month to familiarize myself with people and things,
to learn the duties of my new office, and accustom myself to the Count's
methods. A secretary necessarily watches the man who makes use of him.
That man's tastes, passions, temper, and manias become the subject of
involuntary study. The union of their two minds is at once more and less
than a marriage.

"During these months the Count and I reciprocally studied each other. I
learned with astonishment that Comte Octave was but thirty-seven years
old. The merely superficial peacefulness of his life and the propriety
of his conduct were the outcome not solely of a deep sense of duty and
of stoical reflection; in my constant intercourse with this man--an
extraordinary man to those who knew him well--I felt vast depths beneath
his toil, beneath his acts of politeness, his mask of benignity, his
assumption of resignation, which so closely resembled calmness that it
is easy to mistake it. Just as when walking through forest-lands certain
soils give forth under our feet a sound which enables us to guess
whether they are dense masses of stone or a void; so intense egoism,
though hidden under the flowers of politeness, and subterranean caverns
eaten out by sorrow sound hollow under the constant touch of familiar
life. It was sorrow and not despondency that dwelt in that really great
soul. The Count had understood that actions, deeds, are the supreme law
of social man. And he went on his way in spite of secret wounds, looking
to the future with a tranquil eye, like a martyr full of faith.

"His concealed sadness, the bitter disenchantment from which he
suffered, had not led him into philosophical deserts of incredulity;
this brave statesman was religious, without ostenta