of vanishing powers and dawning weakness. The age of forty is the age
of folly,--an age when man wants to be loved for himself; whereas at
twenty-five life is so full that he has no wants. At twenty-five he
overflows with vigor and wastes it with impunity, but at forty he
learns that to use it in that way is to abuse it. The thoughts that
came into des Lupeaulx's mind at this moment were melancholy ones. The
nerves of the old beau relaxed; the agreeable smile, which served as a
mask and made the character of his countenance, faded; the real man
appeared, and he was horrible. Rabourdin caught sight of him and
thought, "What has happened to him? can he be disgraced in any way?"
The general-secretary was, however, only thinking how the pretty
Madame Colleville, whose intentions were exactly those of Madame
Rabourdin, had summarily abandoned him when it suited her to do so.
Rabourdin caught the sham statesman's eyes fixed on his wife, and he
recorded the look in his memory. He was too keen an observer not to
understand des Lupeaulx to the bottom, and he deeply despised him;
but, as with most busy men, his feelings and sentiments seldom came to
the surface. Absorption in a beloved work is practically equivalent to
the cleverest dissimulation, and thus it was that the opinions and
ideas of Rabourdin were a sealed book to des Lupeaulx. The former was
sorry to see the man in his house, but he was never willing to oppose
his wife's wishes. At this particular moment, while he talked
confidentially with a supernumerary of his office who was destined,
later, to play an unconscious part in a political intrigue
resulting from the death of La Billardiere, he watched, though
half-abstractedly, his wife and des Lupeaulx.

Here we must explain, as much for foreigners as for our own
grandchildren, what a supernumerary in a government office in Paris
means.