As for what her tormentor had said of Nino, she could have killed him for saying it, but she knew that it was a lie; for she loved Nino with all her heart, and no one can love wholly without trusting wholly.  Therefore she put away the evil suggestion from herself, and loaded all its burden of treachery upon Benoni.

How long she sat by the window, compelling her strained thoughts into order, no one can tell.  It might have been an hour, or more, for she had lost the account of the hours.  She was roused by a knock at the door of her sitting-room, and at her bidding the man entered who, for the trifling consideration of about a thousand francs, first and last made communication possible between Hedwig and myself.

This man’s name is Temistocle,—­Themistocles, no less.  All servants are Themistocles, or Orestes, or Joseph, just as all gardeners are called Antonio.  Perhaps he deserves some description.  He is a type, short, wiry, and broad-shouldered, with a cunning eye, a long hooked nose, and very plentiful black whiskers, surmounted by a perfectly bald crown.  His motions are servile to the last degree, and he addresses everyone in authority as “excellency,” on the principle that it is better to give too much titular homage than too little.  He is as wily as a fox, and so long as you have money in your pocket, as faithful as a hound and as silent as the grave.  I perceive that these are precisely the epithets at which the baron scoffed, saying that a man can be praised only by comparing him with the higher animals, or insulted by comparison with himself and his kind.  We call a man a fool, an idiot, a coward, a liar, a traitor, and many other things applicable only to man himself.  However, I will let my description stand, for it is a very good one; and Temistocle could be induced, for money, to adapt himself to almost any description, and he certainly had earned, at one time or another, most of the titles I have enumerated.

He told me, months afterwards, that when he passed through the courtyard, on his way to Hedwig’s apartment, he found Benoni seated on the stone bench, smoking a cigarette and gazing into space, so that he passed close before him without being noticed.

CHAPTER XIX

Temistocle closed the door, then opened it again, and looked out, after which he finally shut it, and seemed satisfied.  He advanced with cautious tread to where Hedwig sat by the window.

“Well?  What have you done?” she inquired, without looking at him.  It is a hard thing for a proud and noble girl to be in the power of a servant.  The man took Nino’s letter from his pocket, and handed it to her upon his open palm.  Hedwig tried hard to take it with indifference, but she acknowledges that her fingers trembled and her heart beat fast.

“I was to deliver a message to your excellency from the old gentleman,” said Temistocle, coming close to her and bending down.