Cold, stiff, aping evidently the English style, he expressed
himself in brief sentences, and with a strong foreign accent.
Nothing to surprise on his countenance. He had the forehead
prominent, the eyes of a dull blue, and the nose very thin. His
scanty hair was spread over the top of his head with labored
symmetry; and his red, thick, and carefully-trimmed whiskers seemed
to engross much of his attention.

M. Saint Pavin had not the same stiff manner. Careless in his
dress, he lacked breeding. He was a robust fellow, dark and bearded,
with thick lips, the eye bright and prominent, spreading upon the
table-cloth broad hands ornamented at the joints with small tufts of
hair, speaking loud, laughing noisily, eating much and drinking more.

By the side of him, M. Jules Jottras, although looking like a
fashion-plate, did not show to much advantage. Delicate, blonde,
sallow, almost beardless, M. Jottras distinguished himself only by
a sort of unconscious impudence, a harmless cynicism, and a sort of
spasmodic giggle, that shook the eye-glasses which he wore stuck
over his nose.

But it was above all Mme. de Thaller who excited Mme. Favoral's
apprehensions.

Dressed with a magnificence of at least questionable taste, very
much _decolletee_, wearing large diamonds at her ears, and rings on
all her fingers, the young baroness was insolently handsome, of a
beauty sensuous even to coarseness. With hair of a bluish black,
twisted over the neck in heavy ringlets, she had skin of a pearly
whiteness, lips redder than blood, and great eyes that threw flames