“Mr. Robert Carruthers,” he announced me with the greatest ceremony.  “Go in, honey,” he said softly and I passed into the room whose door he closed quietly behind me.

“Good morning, Robert,” said the Gouverneur Faulkner to me as I came and stood opposite him at the edge of his wide desk.  And he smiled at me with a great gentleness that had also humor playing into it from the corners of his eyes and mouth.  “I’m afraid that you’ve landed in the midst of a genuine case of American hustle this ‘morning after.’  Here are two lists of specifications, one in English weights and measurements and the other in French.  I want you to compare them carefully, checking them as you go and then re-checking them.  I want to be sure they are the same.  Also make a good literal translation of any notes that may be in French and compare them with the notes in English.  Do you think it can be done for me by three o’clock, in time for a conference I have at that hour?” With which request he, the Gouverneur Faulkner, handed me two large sheets of paper down which were many long columns of figures.

“Mon Dieu,” I said to myself under my breath, for always I have had to count out the pieces of money necessary to give to Nannette for the washer of the linen at the Chateau de Grez, upon the fingers of my hands, which often seemed too few to furnish me sufficient aid.  But in a small instant I had recovered my courage, which brought with it a determination to do that task if it meant my death.

“Yes, Your Excellency,” I answered him with a great composure in the face of the tragedy.

“You’ll find the small office between my office and that of General Carruthers empty.  A ring of the bell under the desk means for you to come to me.  I’ll try not to interrupt you.  Two rings means to go to the General.  That is about all.”  With a wave of his hand the Gouverneur Faulkner dismissed me to my death.

With my head up in the air I turned from him and prepared to retire to my prison from which I could see no release, when again I heard his summons.  He had risen and was standing beside his desk and as I turned he held out his hand into which I laid mine as he drew me near to him.

“Youngster,” he said and the smile which all persons call cold was all of gentleness into my eyes, “these are going to be some hard days for us all, these next ten, and if I drive you too hard, balk, will you?”

“To the death for you I’ll go, my Gouverneur Faulkner,” I answered him, looking straight into his tired eyes that were so deep under the black, silver-tipped wings of his brows.  I did not mean that death I had threatened myself from the mathematics in the paper, but in my heart there was something that rose and answered the sadness in his eyes with again all that savageness of a barbarian.

“Then I’ll take you to the point of demise—­almost—­if I need you,” he answered me with a laugh that hid a quiver of emotion in his voice as something that was like unto a spark shot from the depths of his eyes into the depths of mine.  “Go get the papers verified and let me know when you have finished.”  And this time I was in reality dismissed.  I went; but in my heart was a strange smoulder that the spark had kindled.