There was a few minutes' pause again. Then the door opened softly, and the stock-broker's face appeared, sadly altered. Now all his youthfulness, prolonged by high living and cosmetics, had fled. His hair was sparse on the temples and on the top of his head. Two flabby, yellowish bags underlined his eyes, and thousands of small wrinkles came down in all directions, marking the face indelibly. The jacket that hardly covered him had the collar turned up, as if he were cold or wished to hide his linen.
'Is it you?' he asked, with a sickly smile.
He brought Don Crescenzio into the parlour, a shabby lodging-house sitting-room with red chair-covers and curtains dulled by smoke, and sat down opposite to him, looking at him with dull eyes which had lost all expression.
'It is I. I went to look for you at the Exchange. Have you not been there to-day?' Don Crescenzio asked, feeling a burning at his stomach again.
'No, I did not go to-day.'
'Why not?'
'No matter.'
'Have you not been there for some time?'
'Not for—yes ... for three or four days.'
'What have you been doing?' Don Crescenzio asked anxiously.