“She’s not that naïve,” returned Hopestill with a laugh. “Why, the Countess is certain of nothing, but she has her high hopes.”

“And did my predecessor keep her part of the bargain?”

“To the letter.”

The Friday evening conversations became, after a few months, an established institution. Hopestill told me frankly that she far preferred to hear my bulletin on the afternoon in the music room to going to parties. I obliged her, partly because I would not have known how to refuse, and partly because it was flattering to have so eager a listener and so open an admirer of what she called my “faithful eye.”