It appeared that Madame de S—­ could not bear Swiss servants about her person; and, indeed, servants would not stay for very long in the Chateau Borel.  There were always difficulties.  Miss Haldin had already noticed that the hall was like a dusty barn of marble and stucco with cobwebs in the corners and faint tracks of mud on the black and white tessellated floor.

“I look also after this animal,” continued the dame de compagnie, keeping her hands folded quietly in front of her; and she bent her worn gaze upon the cat.  “I don’t mind a bit.  Animals have their rights; though, strictly speaking, I see no reason why they should not suffer as well as human beings.  Do you?  But of course they never suffer so much.  That is impossible.  Only, in their case it is more pitiful because they cannot make a revolution.  I used to be a Republican.  I suppose you are a Republican?”

Miss Haldin confessed to me that she did not know what to say.  But she nodded slightly, and asked in her turn—­

“And are you no longer a Republican?”

“After taking down Peter Ivanovitch from dictation for two years, it is difficult for me to be anything.  First of all, you have to sit perfectly motionless.  The slightest movement you make puts to flight the ideas of Peter Ivanovitch.  You hardly dare to breathe.  And as to coughing—­God forbid!  Peter Ivanovitch changed the position of the table to the wall because at first I could not help raising my eyes to look out of the window, while waiting for him to go on with his dictation.  That was not allowed.  He said I stared so stupidly.  I was likewise not permitted to look at him over my shoulder.  Instantly Peter Ivanovitch stamped his foot, and would roar, ‘Look down on the paper!’ It seems my expression, my face, put him off.  Well, I know that I am not beautiful, and that my expression is not hopeful either.  He said that my air of unintelligent expectation irritated him.  These are his own words.”

Miss Haldin was shocked, but admitted to me that she was not altogether surprised.

“Is it possible that Peter Ivanovitch could treat any woman so rudely?” she cried.

The dame de compagnie nodded several times with an air of discretion, then assured Miss Haldin that she did not mind in the least.  The trying part of it was to have the secret of the composition laid bare before her; to see the great author of the revolutionary gospels grope for words as if he were in the dark as to what he meant to say.

“I am quite willing to be the blind instrument of higher ends.  To give one’s life for the cause is nothing.  But to have one’s illusions destroyed—­that is really almost more than one can bear.  I really don’t exaggerate,” she insisted.  “It seemed to freeze my very beliefs in me—­the more so that when we worked in winter Peter Ivanovitch, walking up and down the room, required no artificial heat to keep himself warm.  Even when we move