keep silent respecting Salvat's arrest. It's fully understood, is it not?
I alone am to know everything; and you will communicate with me here
direct, by the telephone, if any serious incident should arise."

The Chief of the Detective Police had scarcely gone off, by way of an
adjoining /salon/, when the usher reopened the door communicating with
the ante-room: "Monsieur le President du Conseil."

With a nicely adjusted show of deference and cordiality, Monferrand
stepped forward, his hands outstretched: "Ah! my dear President, why did
you put yourself out to come here? I would have called on you if I had
known that you wished to see me."

But with an impatient gesture Barroux brushed aside all question of
etiquette. "No, no! I was taking my usual stroll in the Champs Elysees,
and the worries of the situation impressed me so keenly that I preferred
to come here at once. You yourself must realise that we can't put up with
what is taking place. And pending to-morrow morning's council, when we
shall have to arrange a plan of defence, I felt that there was good
reason for us to talk things over."

He took an armchair, and Monferrand on his side rolled another forward so
as to seat himself with his back to the light. Whilst Barroux, the elder
of the pair by ten years, blanched and solemn, with a handsome face,
snowy whiskers, clean-shaven chin and upper-lip, retained all the dignity
of power, the bearing of a Conventionnel of romantic views, who sought to
magnify the simple loyalty of a rather foolish but good-hearted
/bourgeois/ nature into something great; the other, beneath his heavy
common countenance and feigned frankness and simplicity, concealed
unknown depths, the unfathomable soul of a shrewd enjoyer and despot who