Irishman
bluntly, furious at his inability to discover anything.

But the next moment, realizing that he had gone too far, he tempered his
ill-humor and the brutality of his diagnosis with a bolus of trite,
axiomatic observations.--He must be careful. Medicine was not magic. The
power of the Jenkins Pearls was limited by human strength, the
necessities of advancing age, the resources of nature, which, unhappily,
are not inexhaustible. The duke interrupted him nervously:

"Come, come, Jenkins, you know that I don't like fine phrases. They
don't go with me. What is the matter with me? What is the cause of this
coldness?"

"It's anaemia, exhaustion--a lowering of the oil in the lamp."

"What must I do?"

"Nothing. Absolute rest. Eat and sleep, nothing more. If you could go
and pass a few weeks at Grandbois--"

Mora shrugged his shoulders.

"What about the Chamber, and the Council, and--Nonsense! as if it were
possible!"

"At all events, Monsieur le Duc, you must put on the drag, as someone
said, you must absolutely give up--"

Jenkins was interrupted by the entrance of the usher, who glided softly
into the room on tiptoe, like a dancing-master, and handed a letter and
a card to the minister who was still shivering in front of the fire.
When he saw that envelope, of a satiny shade of gray, and of peculiar
shape, the Irishman involuntarily started, while the duke, having opened
his letter and glanced over it, rose to his feet full of animation, on
his cheeks the faint flush of factitious health which all the heat from
the fire had failed to bring to them.

"My dear Doctor, you must at any cost--"

The usher was standing near, waiting.

"What is it?--Oh! yes, this card. Show him into the gallery, I will be
there in a moment."

The Duc de Mora's gallery, which was open to visitors twice a week, was
to him a sort of neutral territory, a public place where he could see
anybody on earth without binding himself to anything or compromising
himself. Then, when the usher had left the room:

"Jenkins, my good friend, you have already performed miracles for me. I
ask you to perform another. Double my dose of the pearls, think up
something, whatever you choose. But I must be in condition Sunday. You
understand, in perfect condition."

And his hot, feverish fingers closed upon the little note he held with a
shudder of longing.

"Beware, Monsieur le Duc," said Jenkins, very pale, his lips pressed
tightly together, "I