'tis a sad dog, but very
clever and _loves me_, he would be incomparable, if he were but decently
honest."

"At least," said I, "he is no hypocrite, and that is some praise."

"Hem!" ejaculated the Duke, very slowly, and then, after a pause, he
said, "Count, I have a real kindness for you, and I will therefore give
you a piece of advice: think as well of Dubois as you can, and address
him as if he were all you endeavoured to fancy him."

After this hint, which in the mouth of any prince but Philip of Orleans
would have been not a little remarkable for its want of dignity, my
prospects did not seem much brighter; however, I was not discouraged.

"The Abbe," said I, respectfully, "is a choleric man: one _may_
displease him; but dare I hope that so long as I preserve inviolate my
zeal and my attachment to the interests and the person of your Highness,
no--"

The Regent interrupted me. "You mean nobody shall successfully
misrepresent you to me? No, Count" (and here the Regent spoke with the
earnestness and dignity, which, when he did assume, few wore with
a nobler grace)--"no, Count, I make a distinction between those who
minister to the state and those who minister to me. I consider your
services too valuable to the former to put them at the mercy of the
latter. And now that the conversation has turned upon business I wish to
speak to you about this scheme of Gortz."

After a prolonged conference with the Regent upon matters of business,
in which his deep penetration into human nature not a little surprised
me, I went away thoroughly satisfied with my visit. I should not have
been so had I added to my other accomplishments the gift of prophecy.
Above five days after this interview, I thought it would be but prudent
to pay the Abbe Dubois one of those visits of homage which it was
already become policy to pay him. "If I go," thought I, "it will seem as
if nothing had happened; if I stay away, it will seem as if I attached
importance to a scene I should appear to have forgotten."

It so happened that the Abbe had a very unusual visitor that morning,
in the person of the austere but admirable Duc de St. Simon. There was a
singular and almost invariable distinction in the Regent's mind between
one kind of regard and another. His regard for one order of persons
always arose either out of his vices or his indolence; his regard for
another, out of his good qualities and his strong sense. The Duc de St.
Simon held the same