The circumstances were these.
The first day or so after I left my bedroom I spent in writing up my Diary: making the notes on which the last three chapters are based.
The Countess' arrangements as to de Fouquier's successor were completed; the gentleman in question, a Monsieur de Beaurepaire, was ready to take up his duties in three days' time. De Fouquier knew nothing.
The day before the morning fixed upon for his dismissal I was sitting alone in the library, writing in my Diary. The door opened, I drew the blotting-paper protectively over the page. It was Monsieur de Fouquier, and he knew: knew everything. There was a look in his eyes—a look I have only seen once besides, many years later, on the face of a Russian nobleman, the night before he shot himself in the bedroom of a St. Petersburgh hotel—of wolfish desperation; desperate and wolfish as only the eyes of a selfish luxurious well-fed man can become. His voice, however, was still suave, unpleasantly suave.
"Ah, good day, Mademoiselle. I have come to say Good-bye. I am glad to have had the pleasure of knowing you so well."
"I am sorry," I replied (I think sincerely), "though, despite the long time I have been here, I could hardly agree with you that we have known each other well. We have so little to do with each other."
"Directly, perhaps," he said meaningly. "De vive voix, it is true, you have given me but sparingly of your thoughts and views. I have been able to learn to appreciate them, nevertheless, thanks to an occasional perusal of that charming book before you now. Oh, I read your language if I do not speak it. Vot vud Jesus do? Vot vud Jesus do?"—in mocking horrible English.
Shame flooded me, and hate. This monster, who for months had been peering into the secret places of my soul!
"Vat vud Jesus do?" he was repeating, with a sneer again and again.