Only the Napoleonic despotism, the
booted heir of the Revolution, which counted that intellectual woman for
an enemy worthy to be watched, was something quite unlike the autocracy
in mystic vestments, engendered by the slavery of a Tartar conquest.
And Madame de S-- was very far from resembling the gifted author of
_Corinne_. She made a great noise about being persecuted. I don't
know if she were regarded in certain circles as dangerous. As to being
watched, I imagine that the Chateau Borel could be subjected only to a
most distant observation. It was in its exclusiveness an ideal abode for
hatching superior plots--whether serious or futile. But all this did not
interest me. I wanted to know the effect its extraordinary inhabitants
and its special atmosphere had produced on a girl like Miss Haldin, so
true, so honest, but so dangerously inexperienced! Her unconsciously
lofty ignorance of the baser instincts of mankind left her disarmed
before her own impulses. And there was also that friend of her brother,
the significant new arrival from Russia.... I wondered whether she
had managed to meet him.
We walked for some time, slowly and in silence.
"You know," I attacked her suddenly, "if you don't intend telling me
anything, you must say so distinctly, and then, of course, it shall be
final.
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