There were upon my study table a number of books and papers, placed there with such evident intention that I took cognizance of them, judging them to be the accounts rendered by the Vicomte's various estates. So far as a cursory examination could prove it, I judged that we had to deal with but clumsy scoundrels, and in France in those days scoundrels were of fine fleur, I can tell you, while every sort of villainy flourished there.
I was engaged with these books when the Vicomte entered, after knocking at the door. He referred to this courteous precaution by a little gesture indicating the panel upon which his knuckle had sounded.
"You see," he said, "this room is yours. Let us begin as we intend to go on."
If I was a queer secretary, here at all events was an uncommon master.
We fell to work at once, and one or two questions requiring immediate investigation came under discussion. I told him my opinion of his stewards; for I hated to see an old man so cheated. I lived, it will be remembered, in a glass house, and naturally was forever reaching my hand towards a stone. The Vicomte laughed in his kindly way at what he was pleased to term my high-handedness.
"Mon Dieu!" he cried; "what a grasp of steel. But they will be surprised--the bourgeois. I have always been so tolerant. I have ruled by kindness."
"He who rules by kindness is the slave of thieves," I answered, penning the letter we had decided to indite.
The Vicomte laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
"Well," he said, "so long as we begin as we intend to go on."
Such in any case was the beginning, and this my introduction to the duties I had undertaken. They seemed simple enough, and especially so to one who was no novice at the administration of an estate. For my father, in his softer moments--when, in fact, he had been brought to recognize that my vices were at least hereditary--had initiated me into the working of a great landed holding.
At seven o'clock we dined. Mademoiselle wore a white dress with a broad yellow ribbon round her girlish waist. Her sleeves--I suppose it was the fashion of the period--were wide and flowing, and her arms and hands were those of a child.
Madame de Clericy, I remember, did not talk much, saying little more, indeed, than such polite words as her position of hostess rendered necessary. The burden of the conversation rested chiefly with her aged husband, who sustained it simply and cheerily. His chief aim at this, and indeed at all times, seemed to be to establish an agreeable and mutual ease. I have seldom seen in a man, and especially in an old man, such consideration for the feelings of others.