“Well, old fellow, have you the chance of talking with that man! You remember his chapter on love in some old book or other. Ah! he’s a lascar who knows all about the women. But what the devil are you going to question him about?”
“About this Greslon case,” replied the judge; “the young man has often been to his house, and the defense has summoned him as witness for the prisoner. A commission of examination has been issued, nothing more.”
“I wish I could see him,” said the other.
“Would it give you pleasure? Nothing easier. I am going to have him called. You will go out as he comes in. Well, it is settled that we will meet at Durand’s at eight o’clock, is it? Will Gladys be there?”
“Of course. Do you know Gladys’ latest?” We were reproaching Christine in her presence for deceiving Jacques, when she said:
“But she must have two lovers, for she spends in one year twice what each one gives her!”
“Faith,” said Valette, “I believe that she surpasses, in the philosophy of love, all the Sixtes in the world and in the demi-world too.”
The two friends laughed gayly, then the judge gave the order to call the philosopher. The curious one, while shaking hands with Vilette and saying: “Good-by till evening, precisely at eight o’clock,” winked his eye behind his single eyeglass in order the better to unmask the illustrious writer whom he knew from having read the piquant extracts from the “Theory of the Passions,” in the newspapers.
The appearance of the good man, at once timid and eccentric, who entered the judge’s office with the most visible embarrassment, contradicted so plainly the idea of the biting misanthrope, cruel and disillusioned, who was outlined in their imagination, that the man-about-town and the magistrate exchanged a look of astonishment. A smile came irresistibly to their lips, but only for a moment. The friend was already gone. The other motioned to the witness to take a seat in one of the green velvet arm chairs with which the room was furnished, a luxury completed, in the administrative manner, by a green moquette carpet and a mahogany writing desk. The face of the judge had resumed its gravity.
These changes from one attitude to another are much more sincere than those imagine who observe these contrasts of bearing between the private man and the functionary. The perfect social comedian, who holds his profession in perfect contempt, is happily a very rare monster. We have not this strength of scepticism in the service of our hypocrisies. The witty M. Valette, so popular in the demi-monde, the friend of sporting men, emulated by journalists in witticisms, and who had just now commented gayly upon the remark of a bold woman with whom he should dine in the evening, found no trouble to give place to the severe and coolly skillful magistrate whose business it was to find out the truth in the name of the law. If his eye became suddenly acute it was that he might penetrate to the bottom of the consciousness of the newcomer.