Deslauriers had come back, and the second armchair was occupied by a young man. The clerk said, pointing towards him:
"'Tis he! There he is! Sénécal!" Frederick disliked this young man. His forehead was heightened by the way in which he wore his hair, cut straight like a brush. There was a certain hard, cold look in his grey eyes; and his long black coat, his entire costume, savoured of the pedagogue and the ecclesiastic.
They first discussed topics of the hour, amongst others the Stabat of Rossini. Sénécal, in answer to a question, declared that he never went to the theatre.
Pellerin opened the box of colours.
"Are these all for you?" said the clerk.
"Why, certainly!"
"Well, really! What a notion!" And he leaned across the table, at which the mathematical tutor was turning over the leaves of a volume of Louis Blanc. He had brought it with him, and was reading passages from it in low tones, while Pellerin and Frederick were examining together the palette, the knife, and the bladders; then the talk came round to the dinner at Arnoux's.
"The picture-dealer, is it?" asked Sénécal. "A nice gentleman, truly!"
"Why, now?" said Pellerin. Sénécal replied:
"A man who makes money by political turpitude!"