" Then, feeling his courage fail him, he
added hastily, "There is not a woman in society, with her mincing
airs, that is worth the honest nature of that young animal."
"At any rate, I wish nothing of the animal about me," said the
countess, with a glance like that of an angry viper.
After that evening Comte Paz showed Clementine the exact state of her
affairs; he made himself her tutor, taught her the methods and
difficulties of the management of property, the proper prices to pay
for things, and how to avoid being cheated by her servants. He told
her she could rely on Constantin and make him her major-domo. Thaddeus
had trained the man thoroughly. By the end of May he thought the
countess fully competent to carry on her affairs alone; for Clementine
was one of those far-sighted women, full of instinct, who have an
innate genius as mistress of a household.
This position of affairs, which Thaddeus had led up to naturally, did
not end without further cruel trials; his sufferings were fated not to
be as sweet and tender as he was trying to make them. The poor lover
forgot to reckon on the hazard of events. Adam fell seriously ill, and
Thaddeus, instead of leaving the house, stayed to nurse his friend.
His devotion was unwearied. A woman who had any interest in employing
her perspicacity might have seen in this devotion a sort of punishment
imposed by a noble soul to repress an involuntary evil thought; but
women see all, or see nothing, according to the condition of their
souls--love is their sole illuminator.
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