Jasmin decided to comply with the notary’s wish. He put on his best coat, pulled a bit of his ruff out beneath his waistcoat, donned his silver buckled shoes, although they had long since ceased to be in style, and in that garb, worthy of the confidential valet of a great family, he betook himself to the office of Monsieur d’Hurbain, the notary.
When Jasmin appeared at the office, the notary was not alone; two persons were with him.
One of them, by name Edouard de Monfréville, was a man apparently thirty-six or thirty-seven years of age, who still had the bearing, the manners and all the dandified aspect of a young man. He was tall, well-built, as slender as if he were but twenty, and wore with much grace the costume of a young exquisite. His face was handsome and attractive at the same time; his features were regular, and his brown hair of a fineness and gloss which a lady might have envied; but in his great eyes, which were black and piercing, one could read sometimes a mocking expression which harmonized perfectly with the faint smile that played about his mouth; and upon his brow, which like his face bore signs of weariness, there were lines which indicated that ennui and grief had passed that way.
The other person was a man of twenty-eight, a faded blond, with a very fair complexion, light-blue eyes, a nose with dilated nostrils, and a large mouth with thick lips. That assemblage of features did not make what could be called a handsome man; but his face exhibited a constant succession of expressions which enlivened it wonderfully; it was a combination of gayety, raillery, cunning, libertinage, indifference, and shrewdness, all accompanied by most distinguished manners; and although his costume was a long way from the elegance of Monsieur de Monfréville’s, and although, in fact, certain parts of his dress were too much neglected, he wore his soiled and shabby coat with so much ease of manner, he held his head so straight in his faded cravat, that it was impossible not to recognize in him a man of birth. His name was Comte Virgile Daréna.
When a clerk entered the private office and announced that old Jasmin had obeyed the summons that he had received, Daréna burst out laughing.
“Jasmin!” he said; “who in the devil can have such a name as Jasmin? Can it be, my dear notary, that you have clients named Jasmin? Why, that name is only fit for a stage servant!”
“No, Monsieur Daréna,” replied the notary, with a smile, “this man is a servant in a most excellent family; he is one of that race of old retainers such as we used to see; unfortunately the race is almost extinct in our day.”
“Ah! he must be an amusing character; an old groom, eh, Monfréville?”
The person to whom this question was addressed barely smiled as he replied:
“I don’t see what there is so amusing in all this!”