This intelligence did not serve as a very pleasant accompaniment to my breakfast. I saw at once how affairs were going, and easily divined that my lord, finding me so little disposed to pamper the jealousy, which, though it tore his very heart, was still his favourite passion, was inclined to take Gaspard into his confidence, very sure of finding all sort of compliance on his part. To him I had been, as it were, a blunt razor in the hands of a man who wished to cut his own throat; but Gaspard de Belleville was very well inclined, I believed, to prove the instrument of the wrong which his lord inflicted upon himself. From this new arrangement, there was, of course, much to fear, as far as my personal favour with the Duke went; but, even under that mortification, it was no small consolation to me to think that Gaspard could do little to injure the poor Duchess. However malevolent might be his natural disposition, as far as I knew he had seen nothing which he could distort to evil purposes, and I also believed him to be too stupid to frame a story for himself, or to invent circumstances with such a regard to probability as would deceive even Monsieur de Villardin's willing credulity. What might proceed from the agency of the maid, Suzette, I could not tell. She was, herself, a bold, intriguing, saucy woman; suspected strongly by every one of not being quite a Diana; but I believed that she really was attached to her mistress, and trusted to that attachment to vindicate the Duchess from all suspicion. My fears, therefore, if I can call them fears, were chiefly confined to myself; and, although I may safely say--now that it is all past and over--that interested feelings had nothing to do with my apprehensions, yet it was most painful to me to think I might be supplanted in the affection and confidence of a nobleman, for whom, with all his faults and his weakness, I entertained a sincere affection. "Well, Jerome," I said, after a moment's thought, "you are an old and faithful follower of Monsieur de Villardin. You see, as we all see, how miserable he is making himself about empty fancies and phantoms in the air. Depend upon it, Gaspard is not likely to do him any good in these respects. Now it is your duty, surely, to strain every effort to counteract any evil that may be done." "But how can I?--how can I, my dear young gentleman?" cried the old man; "I dare not speak to my lord on such subjects, unless he speaks to me." "A few words well applied often do a great deal," replied I. "If the Duke hears his lady cried up by all his oldest and best servants and friends as what she really is--all that is good and virtuous--he will soon learn to think so too; and you may find many an opportunity of saying such words as, 'so good a lady as Madame!'--'so virtuous a lady as the Duchess!'"