“You have a very good master,” she replied, motioning towards the count, whose mouth screwed itself into that smile of satisfaction which is vulgarly termed a “bouche en coeur.”

Two months later I learned she had passed that night in great anxiety, fearing that her son had the croup; while I was in the boat, rocked by thoughts of love, imagined that she might see me from her window adoring the gleam of the candle which was then lighting a forehead furrowed by fears!  The croup prevailed at Tours, and was often fatal.  When we were outside the gate, the count said in a voice of emotion, “Madame de Mortsauf is an angel!” The words staggered me.  As yet I knew but little of the family, and the natural conscience of a young soul made me exclaim inwardly:  “What right have I to trouble this perfect peace?”

Glad to find a listener in a young man over whom he could lord it so easily, the count talked to me of the future which the return of the Bourbons would secure to France.  We had a desultory conversation, in which I listened to much childish nonsense which positively amazed me.  He was ignorant of facts susceptible of proof that might be called geometric; he feared persons of education; he rejected superiority, and scoffed, perhaps with some reason, at progress.  I discovered in his nature a number of sensitive fibres which it required the utmost caution not to wound; so that a conversation with him of any length was a positive strain upon the mind.  When I had, as it were, felt of his defects, I conformed to them with the same suppleness that his wife showed in soothing him.  Later in life I should certainly have made him angry, but now, humble as a child, supposing that I knew nothing and believing that men in their prime knew all, I was genuinely amazed at the results obtained at Clochegourde by this patient agriculturist.  I listened admiringly to his plans; and with an involuntary flattery which won his good-will, I envied him the estate and its outlook—­a terrestrial paradise, I called it, far superior to Frapesle.

“Frapesle,” I said, “is a massive piece of plate, but Clochegourde is a jewel-case of gems,”—­a speech which he often quoted, giving credit to its author.

“Before we came here,” he said, “it was desolation itself.”

I was all ears when he told of his seed-fields and nurseries.  New to country life, I besieged him with questions about prices, means of preparing and working the soil, etc., and he seemed glad to answer all in detail.

“What in the world do they teach you in your colleges?” he exclaimed at last in astonishment.

On this first day the count said to his wife when he reached home, “Monsieur Felix is a charming young man.”

That evening I wrote to my mother and asked her to send my clothes and linen, saying that I should remain at Frapesle.  Ignorant of the great revolution which was just taking place, and not perceiving the influence it was to have upon my fate, I expected to return to Paris to resume my legal studies.  The Law School did not open till the first week in November; meantime I had two months and a half before me.