Of course there was much less internal friction in outfits like Kirby's or the Countess Courteau's, where the men worked under orders, but even there relations were often strained. Both Danny Royal and Pierce Phillips had had their troubles, their problems--nobody could escape them--but I on the whole they had held their men together pretty well and had made fast progress, all things considered. Royal had experience to draw upon, while Phillips had none; nevertheless, the Countess was a good counselor and this brief training in authority was of extreme value to the younger man, who developed some of the qualities of leadership. As a result of their frequent conferences a frank, free intimacy had sprung up between Pierce and his employer, an intimacy both gratifying and disappointing to him. Just how it affected the woman he could not tell. As a matter of fact he made little effort to learn, being for the moment too deeply concerned in the great change that had come over him. Pierce Phillips made no effort to deceive himself: he was in love, yes, desperately in love, and his infatuation grew with every hour. It was his first serious affair and quite naturally its newness took his breath. He had heard of puppy love and he scorned it, but this was not that kind, he told himself; his was an epic adoration, a full-grown, deathless man's affection such as comes to none but the favored of the gods and then but once in a lifetime. The reason was patent--it lay in the fact that the object of his soul-consuming worship was not an ordinary woman. No, the Countess was cast in heroic mold and she inspired love of a character to match her individuality; she was one of those rare, flaming creatures the like of whom illuminate the pages of history. She was another Cleopatra, a regal, matchless creature. To be sure, she was not at all the sort of woman he had expected to love, therefore he loved her the more; nor was she the sort he had chosen as his ideal. But it is this abandonment of old ideals and acceptance of new ones which marks development, which signalizes youth's evolution into maturity. She was a never-ending surprise to Pierce, and the fact that she remained a well of mystery, an unsounded deep that defied his attempts at exploration, excited his imagination and led him to clothe her with every admirable trait, in no few of which she was, of course, entirely lacking.