And the minister did not come.
But it was a promise and everything was understood. Monpavon was to take him up at the club. From time to time honest Jenkins drew his watch, as he tossed an absent-minded bravo to the bouquet of limpid notes that gushed from La Wauters' fairy lips, a bouquet worth three thousand francs, and absolutely wasted, in common with the other expenses of the festivity, if the duke did not come.
Suddenly both wings of the folding-doors were thrown open:
"His Excellency the Duc de Mora!"
A prolonged thrill of excitement greeted him, respectful curiosity drawn up in a double row, instead of the brutal crowding that had impeded the passage of the Nabob.
No one could be more skilled than he in the art of making his appearance in society, of walking gravely across a salon, ascending the tribune with smiling face, imparting solemnity to trifles and treating serious matters lightly; it was a résumé of his attitude in life, a paradoxical distinction. Still handsome, despite his fifty-six years,—a beauty attributable to refined taste and perfect proportion, in which the grace of the dandy was intensified by something of a soldierly character in the figure and the haughty expression of the face,—he appeared to admirable advantage in the black coat, whereon, in Jenkins' honor, he had placed a few of his decorations, which he never displayed except on days of official functions. The sheen of the linen and the white cravat, the unpolished silver of the decorations, the softness of the thin, grayish hair, gave added pallor to the face, the most bloodless of all the bloodless faces assembled that evening under the Irishman's roof.
He led such a terrible life! Politics, gambling in every form, on the Bourse and at baccarat, and the reputation of a lady-killer which he must maintain at any price. Oh! he was a typical patient of Jenkins, and he certainly owed that visit in princely state to the inventor of the mysterious Pearls, which gave to his eyes that glance of flame, to his whole being that extraordinary pulsing vivacity.
"'His Excellency, the Due de Mora!'"
"My dear duke, allow me to present to you—"