The calendar lying at his elbow was an ornamental cardboard trifle, embellished with cupids and simpering shepherdesses--such as girls send to each other at the New Year.

The surroundings, in fact, were indicative rather of a trifling leisure than of important affairs.

The study and writing-table seemed to me to suggest a pleasant fiction of labours, to which the Vicomte retired when he desired solitude and a cigarette.

I wondered what my duties might be.
After a pause, the old gentleman raised his eyes--the kindest eyes in the world--to my face, and I perceived beneath his white lashes a great benevolence, in company with a twinkling sense of humour.
"Does Monsieur know anything of the politics of this unfortunate country ?" he asked, and he leant forward, his elbows on the bare writing-table, his attitude suggesting the kind encouragement which a great doctor will vouchsafe to a timid patient.

The old Frenchman's manner, indeed, aroused in me that which I must be allowed to call my conscience--a cumbrous machine, I admit, hard to set going and soon running down.