clearing away the coffee and the raki, and bearing off the open and
half-emptied cigar-boxes. The Nabob, thinking himself alone, gave a sigh
of relief. "Ouf! that's over." But no. Opposite him, some one comes out
from a corner that is already dark, and approaches with a letter in his
hand.

Another!

And at once, mechanically, the poor man made that eloquent,
horse-dealer's gesture of his. Instinctively, also, the visitor showed a
movement of recoil so prompt, so hurt, that the Nabob understood that he
was making a mistake, and took the trouble to examine the young man who
stood before him, simply but correctly dressed, of a dull complexion,
without the least sign of a beard, with regular features, perhaps a
little too serious and fixed for his age, which, aided by his hair of
pale blond colour, curled in little ringlets like a powdered wig, gave
him the appearance of a young deputy of the Commons under Louis XVI, the
head of a Barnave at twenty! This face, although the Nabob beheld it for
the first time, was not absolutely unknown to him.

"What do you desire, monsieur?"

Taking the letter which the young man held out to him, he went to a
window in order to see to read it.

"Te! It is from mamma."

He said it with so happy an air; that word "mamma" lit up all his face
with so young, so kind a smile, that the visitor, who had been at first
repulsed by the vulgar aspect of this _parvenu_, felt himself filled