“The old teacher?  Let me see. . . .  He said:  do not be discomposed by the opinions of inept persons.  Do not swim with the crowd.  They who are all things to their neighbours, cease to be anything to themselves.  Even a diamond can have too many facets.  Avoid the attrition of vulgar minds; keep your edges intact.  He also said:  A man can protect himself with fists or sword but his best weapon is his intellect.  A weapon must be forged in the fire.  The fire, in our case, is tribulation.  It must also be kept untarnished.  If the mind is clean, the body can take care of itself.  He said:  delve deeply; not too deeply into the past, for it may make you derivative; nor yet into yourself—­it will make you introspective.  Delve into the living world and strive to bind yourself to its movement by a chain of your own welding.  Once that contact is established, you are unassailable.  Externalize yourself!  He told me many things of this kind.  You think I was consoled by his words?  Not in the slightest degree.  I was annoyed.  In fact, I thought him rather a hypocrite; anybody could have spoken as he did!  I was so disappointed that I went to him next day and told him frankly what I thought of his counsel.  He said—­do you know what he said?”

“I cannot even guess.”

“He said:  ’What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes?  Take fifty of our current proverbial sayings—­they are so trite, so threadbare, that we can hardly bring our lips to utter them.  None the less they embody the concentrated experience of the race, and the man who orders his life according to their teaching cannot go far wrong.  How easy that seems!  Has any one ever done so?  Never.  Has any man ever attained to inner harmony by pondering the experiences of others?  Not since the world began!  He must pass through the fire.’”

“I had no teacher like that,” observed Denis.  “He must have been a man of the right kind.”

“Oh, he meant well, the old rascal,” replied the Count with a curious little smile.

CHAPTER XIV

Denis descended from the Old Town.  At a turn of the road he overtook the bishop who was moving slowly in the same direction.

“How is Mrs. Meadows?” enquired the young man.

“Not particularly well, I’m afraid.  And the Count?”

“Oh, quite all right.”

They walked along in silence, having little to say to each other.  That visit had done Denis good; he would return soon again, if only for the purpose of cheering up the lonely old man who, at the last moment, had given him a photograph of the Locri Faun, with a kindly inscription from himself.  He was not to show it to anybody, the Count had said—­not yet!  The government must not hear about that relic—­not yet!  Later on, perhaps very soon, everything would be in order.  Denis cherished that photo in his pocket.  He was thinking, too, of the pastel—­the face of Matilda, which seemed like a star shining through the mist. . . .  Then he remembered the bishop walking at his side.  He felt he ought to say something more to this dry Colonial whom he could not help contrasting, greatly to his disadvantage, with the Count.