[ALL OVER]
Comte de Lormerin had just finished dressing. He cast a parting
glance at the large mirror which occupied an entire panel in his
dressing-room and smiled.
He was really a fine-looking man still, although quite gray. Tall,
slight, elegant, with no sign of a paunch, with a small mustache of
doubtful shade, which might be called fair, he had a walk, a nobility,
a "chic," in short, that indescribable something which establishes a
greater difference between two men than would millions of money. He
murmured:
"Lormerin is still alive!"
And he went into the drawing-room where his correspondence awaited
him.
On his table, where everything had its place, the work table of the
gentleman who never works, there were a dozen letters lying beside
three newspapers of different opinions. With a single touch he spread
out all these letters, like a gambler giving the choice of a card; and
he scanned the handwriting, a thing he did each morning before opening
the envelopes.
It was for him a moment of delightful expectancy, of inquiry and vague
anxiety. What did these sealed mysterious letters bring him? What did
they contain of pleasure, of happiness, or of grief? He surveyed them
with a rapid sweep of the eye, recognizing the writing, selecting
them, making two or three lots, according to what he expected from
them. Here, friends; there, persons to whom he was indifferent;
further on, strangers. The last kind always gave him a little
uneasiness. What did they want from him? What hand had traced those
curious characters full of thoughts, promises, or threats?
This day one letter in particular caught his eye. It was simple,
nevertheless, without seeming to reveal anything; but he looked at it
uneasily, with a sort of chill at his heart. He thought: "From whom
can it be? I certainly know this writing, and yet I can't identify
it."
He raised it to a level with his face, holding it delicately between
two fingers, striving to read through the envelope, without making up
his mind to open it.