This was a man of scarcely thirty years of age, handsome,
tall, austere, or rather melancholy, in all his gestures and
looks.

He was dressed in black velvet with jet trimmings; a white
collar, as plain as that of the severest Puritan, set off
the whiteness of his youthful neck; a small dark-colored
mustache scarcely covered his curled, disdainful lip.

He spoke to people looking them full in the face without
affectation, it is true, but without scruple; so that the
brilliancy of his black eyes became so insupportable, that
more than one look had sunk beneath his like the weaker
sword in a single combat.

At this time, in which men, all created equal by God, were
divided, thanks to prejudices, into two distinct castes, the
gentleman and the commoner, as they are really divided into
two races, the black and the white, -- at this time, we say,
he whose portrait we have just sketched could not fail of
being taken for a gentleman, and of the best class. To
ascertain this, there was no necessity to consult anything
but his hands, long, slender, and white, of which every
muscle, every vein, became apparent through the skin at the
least movement, and eloquently spoke of good descent.

This gentleman, then, had arrived alone at Cropole's house.
He had taken, without hesitation, without reflection even,
the principal apartment which the hotelier had pointed out
to him with a rapacious aim, very praiseworthy, some will