"Ah! my friend, what a man! What courage! He has forgotten nobody. Only a little while ago he spoke to me about you."
"Really?"
"'Poor Nabob!'" he said, "'how is his election coming on?'"
And that was all. He had said nothing more.
Jansoulet hung his head. What had he expected, in heaven's name? Was it not enough that a man like Mora should have thought of him at such a moment? He returned to his seat on the bench, relapsed into his former state of prostration, galvanized by a moment of wild hope, sat there heedless of the fact that the vast apartment was becoming almost entirely deserted, and did not notice that he was the last and only visitor remaining until he heard the servants talking aloud in the fading light.
"I have had enough—my service here is done."
"For my part I shall stay with the duchess."
And those plans, those decisions anticipating the master's death by some hours, doomed the noble duke even more surely than the Faculty had done.
The Nabob realized then that it was time for him to withdraw, but he determined first to write his name on the register. He went to the table and leaned far over in order to see clearly. The page was full. A blank space was pointed out to him, below a name written in small, threadlike characters, as if by fingers too stout for the pen, and, when he had signed, Hemerlingue's name overshadowed his, crushed it, entangled it in an insidious flourish. Superstitious like the true Latin that he was, he was impressed by the omen and carried the terror of it away with him.
Where should he dine? At the club? On Place Vendôme? And hear nothing talked of but this death which engrossed his thoughts! He preferred to trust to chance, to go straight ahead like all those who are beset by a persistent idea which they try to escape by walking. It was a warm, balmy evening. He walked on and on along the quays till he reached the tree-lined paths of the Cours-la-Reine, then returned to the combination of freshly-watered streets and odor of fine dust which characterizes fine evenings in Paris. At that uncertain hour everything was deserted. Here and there girandoles were lighted for concerts, gas-jets flared among the foliage. The rattle of plates and glasses from a restaurant suggested to him the idea of entering.