"He has declined to do so, but states that he has already the honour of
your acquaintance."

"A writer in the press, perhaps; or is he an artist?"

"I have not seen him before, Monsieur, but he has the air tres comme il
faut."

"Well, you may admit him. I will not detain you longer, my dear Gandrin.
My homages to Madame. Bonjour."

Louvier bowed out M. Gandrin, and then rubbed his hands complacently.
He was in high spirits. "Aha, my dear Marquis, thou art in my trap now.
Would it were thy father instead," he muttered chucklingly, and then
took his stand on the hearth, with his back to the fireless grate. There
entered a gentleman exceedingly well dressed,--dressed according to the
fashion, but still as became one of ripe middle age, not desiring to
pass for younger than he was.

He was tall, with a kind of lofty ease in his air and his movements; not
slight of frame, but spare enough to disguise the strength and endurance
which belong to sinews and thews of steel, freed from all superfluous
flesh, broad across the shoulders, thin in the flanks. His dark hair had
in youth been luxuriant in thickness and curl; it was now clipped short,
and had become bare at the temples, but it still retained the lustre of
its colour and the crispness of its ringlets. He wore neither beard
nor mustache, and the darkness of his hair was contrasted by a clear
fairness of complexion, healthful, though somewhat pale, and eyes of
that rare gray tint which has in it no shade of blue,--peculiar eyes,
which give a very distinct character to the face. The man must have been
singularly handsome in youth; he was handsome still, though probably in
his forty-seventh or forty-eighth year, doubtless a very different kind
of comeliness. The form of the features and the contour of the face were
those that suit the rounded beauty of the Greek outline, and such beauty
would naturally have been the attribute of the countenance in earlier
days; but the cheeks were now thin, and with lines of care and
sorrow between nostril and lip, so that the shape of the face seemed
lengthened, and the features had become more salient.

Louvier gazed at his visitor with a vague idea that he had seen him
before, and could not remember where or when; but at all events he
recognized at the first glance a man of rank and of the great world.

"Pray be seated, Monsieur," he said, resuming his own easy-chair.

The visitor obeyed the invitation with a very graceful bend