As he turned his eyes from the armorial scutcheon which still rested,
though chipped and mouldering, over the portals of his lost ancestral
house, and was about to cross the street, two young men, who seemed two
or three years older than himself, emerged on horseback from the Hotel
de Vandemar.

Handsome young men, with the lofty look of the old race, dressed with the
punctilious care of person which is not foppery in men of birth, but
seems part of the self-respect that appertains to the old chivalric point
of honour. The horse of one of these cavaliers made a caracole which
brought it nearly upon Alain as he was about to cross. The rider,
checking his steed, lifted his hat to Alain and uttered a word of apology
in the courtesy of ancient high-breeding, but still with condescension as
to an inferior. This little incident, and the slighting kind of notice
received from coevals of his own birth, and doubtless his own blood,--for
he divined truly that they were the sons of the Count de Vandemar,--
disconcerted Alain to a degree which perhaps a Frenchman alone can
comprehend. He had even half a mind to give up his visit and turn back.
However, his native manhood prevailed over that morbid sensitiveness
which, born out of the union of pride and poverty, has all the effects
of vanity, and yet is not vanity itself.

The Count was at home, a thin spare man with a narrow but high forehead,
and an expression of countenance keen, severe, and 'un peu moqueuse.'

He received the Marquis, however, at first with great cordiality,
kissed him on both sides of his cheek, called him "cousin," expressed
immeasurable regret that the Countess was gone out on one of the missions
of charity in which the great ladies of the Faubourg religiously interest
themselves, and that his sons had just ridden forth to the Bois.