itical point of view, of charitable institutes, the repression of
crime, and I could at my leisure study the man on whom my fate would
henceforth depend. The Count was of middle height; it was impossible to
judge of his build on account of his dress, but he seemed to me to
be lean and spare. His face was harsh and hollow; the features were
refined. His mouth, which was rather large, expressed both irony and
kindliness. His forehead perhaps too spacious, was as intimidating as
that of a madman, all the more so from the contrast of the lower part of
the face, which ended squarely in a short chin very near the lower lip.
Small eyes, of turquoise blue, were as keen and bright as those of the
Prince de Talleyrand--which I admired at a later time--and endowed, like
the Prince's, with the faculty of becoming expressionless to the verge
of gloom; and they added to the singularity of a face that was not pale
but yellow. This complexion seemed to bespeak an irritable temper and
violent passions. His hair, already silvered, and carefully dressed,
seemed to furrow his head with streaks of black and white alternately.
The trimness of this head spoiled the resemblance I had remarked in the
Count to the wonderful monk described by Lewis after Schedoni in
the _Confessional of the Black Penitents (The Italian)_, a superior
creation, as it seems to me, to _The Monk_.

"The Count was already shaved, having to attend early at the law courts.
Two candelabra with four lights, screened by lamp-shades, were still
burning at the opposite ends of the writing-table, and showed plainly
that the magistrate rose long before daylight. His hands, which I saw
when he took hold of the bell-pull to summon his servant, were extremely
fine, and as white as a woman's.

"As I tell you this story," said the Consul-General, interrupting
himself, "I am altering the titles and the social position of this
gentleman, while placing him in circumstances analogous to what his
really were. His profession, rank, luxury, fortune, and style of living
were the same; all these details are true, but I would not be false to
my benefactor, nor to my usual habits of discretion.

"Instead of feeling--as I really was, socially speaking--an insect in
the presence of an eagle," the narrator went on after a pause, "I felt I
know not what indefinable impression from the Count's appearance,
which, however, I can now account for. Artists of genius" (and he
bowed gracefully to the Am