A direct encroachment this on the rights and duties of M. le Procureur Impérial; no wonder he surveyed the quiet, insignificant-looking individual before him, with a not altogether benevolent air.
M. le préfet sitting on the opposite side of the high mantelpiece was discreetly silent until his chief chose to speak.
After a brief while the Procureur Impérial addressed his visitor.
"Monsieur le Duc d'Otrante," he said in that dry, supercilious tone which he was wont to affect when addressing his subordinates, "speaks very highly of you, Monsieur—Monsieur— By the way, the Minister, I perceive, does not mention your name. What is your name, Monsieur?"
"Fernand, Monsieur le Procureur," replied the man.
"Fernand? Fernand what?"
"Nothing, Monsieur le Procureur. Only Fernand."
The little Man in Grey spoke very quietly in a dull, colourless tone which harmonised with the neutral tone of his whole appearance. For a moment it seemed as if a peremptory or sarcastic retort hovered on M. le Procureur's lips. The man's quietude appeared like an impertinence.
M. de Saint-Tropèze belonged to the old Noblesse. He had emigrated at the time of the Revolution and spent a certain number of years in England, during which time a faithful and obscure steward administered his property and saved it from confiscation.
The blandishments of the newly-crowned Emperor had lured M. de Saint-Tropèze back to France. Common sense and ambition had seemingly got the better of his antiquated ideals, whilst Napoleon was only too ready to surround himself with as many scions of the ancient nobility as were willing to swear allegiance to him. He welcomed Henri de Saint-Tropèze and showered dignities upon him with a lavish hand; but the latter never forgot that the Government he now served was an upstart one, and he never departed from that air of condescension and high breeding which kept him aloof from his more plebeian subordinates and which gave him an authority and an influence in the province which they themselves could never hope to attain.