before his patron; but it terribly increased in venom the depravity which
disappointment and wounded pride had secreted in his ulcerated heart.

Of course no one will imagine that M. de Camors had the bad taste to
undertake deliberately the demoralization of his secretary; but contact,
intimacy, and example sufficed fully to do this. A secretary is always
more or less a confidant. He divines that which is not revealed to him;
and Vautrot could not be long in discovering that his patron's success
did not arise, morally, from too much principle--in politics, from excess
of conviction--in business, from a mania for scruples! The intellectual
superiority of Camors, refined and insolent as it was, aided to blind
Vautrot, showing him evil which was not only prosperous, but was also
radiant in grace and prestige. For these reasons he most profoundly
admired his master--admired, imitated, and execrated him!

Camors professed for him and for his solemn airs an utter contempt, which
he did not always take the trouble to conceal; and Vautrot trembled when
some burning sarcasm fell from such a height on the old wound of his
vanity--that wound which was ever sore within him. What he hated most in
Camors was his easy and insolent triumph--his rapid and unmerited
fortune--all those enjoyments which life yielded him without pain,
without toil, without conscience--peacefully tasted! But what he hated
above all, was that this man had thus obtained these things while he had
vainly striven for them.

Assuredly, in this Vautrot was not an exception. The same example
presented to a healthier mind would not have been much more salutary,
for we must tell those who, like M. de Camors, trample under foot all
principles of right, and nevertheless imagine that their secretaries,
their servants, their wives and their children, may remain virtuous--