"Believe me, Peter Ivanovitch, that the moments I have passed in
the hall of this house have been not a little interesting, and very
instructive too. They are memorable. I do not regret the waiting, but
I see that the object of my call here can be attained without taking up
Madame de S--'s time."
At this point I interrupted Miss Haldin. The above relation is founded
on her narrative, which I have not so much dramatized as might be
supposed. She had rendered, with extraordinary feeling and animation,
the very accent almost of the disciple of the old apple-woman, the
irreconcilable hater of Ministries, the voluntary servant of the poor.
Miss Haldin's true and delicate humanity had been extremely shocked
by the uncongenial fate of her new acquaintance, that lady companion,
secretary, whatever she was. For my own part, I was pleased to discover
in it one more obstacle to intimacy with Madame de S--. I had a
positive abhorrence for the painted, bedizened, dead-faced, glassy-eyed
Egeria of Peter Ivanovitch. I do not know what was her attitude to the
unseen, but I know that in the affairs of this world she was avaricious,
greedy, and unscrupulous. It was within my knowledge that she had been
worsted in a sordid and desperate quarrel about money matters with the
family of her late husband, the diplomatist.
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