united by imposing vaulted arches, the brougham shot in, announced by
two strokes of a sonorous bell which roused Jenkins from the reverie
into which the reading of his newspaper seemed to have plunged him.
Then the noise of the wheels became deadened on the sand of a vast
court-yard, and they drew up, after describing an elegant curve, before
the steps of the mansion, which were surrounded by a large circular
awning. In the obscurity of the fog, a dozen carriages could be seen
ranged in line, and along an avenue of acacias, quite withered at
that season and leafless in their bark, the profiles of English grooms
leading out the saddle-horses of the duke for their exercise. Everything
revealed a luxury thought-out, settled, grandiose, and assured.

"It is quite useless for me to come early; others always arrive before
me," said Jenkins to himself as he saw the file in which his brougham
took its place; but, certain of not having to wait, with head carried
high, and an air of tranquil authority, he ascended that official flight
of steps which is mounted every day by so many trembling ambitions, so
many anxieties on hesitating feet.

From the very antechamber, lofty and resonant like a church, which,
although calorifers burned night and day, possessed two great wood-fires
that filled it with a radiant life, the luxury of this interior reached
you by warm and heady puffs. It suggested at once a hot-house and
a Turkish bath. A great deal of heat and yet brightness; white
wainscoting, white marbles, immense windows, nothing stifling or shut
in, and yet a uniform atmosphere meet for the surrounding of some
rare existence, refined and nervous. Jenkins always expanded in this
factitious sun of wealth; he greeted with a "good-morning, my lads,"
the powdered porter, with his wide golden scarf, the footmen in
knee-breeches and livery of gold and blue, all standing to do him
honour; lightly drew his finger across the bars of the large cages of
monkeys full of sharp cries and capers, and, whistling under his breath,
stepped quickly up the staircase of shining marble laid with a carpet
as thick as the turf of a lawn, which led to the apartments of the duke.
Although six months had passed since his first visit to Mora House,
the good doctor was not yet become insensible to the quite physical
impression of gaiety, of frivolity, which he received from this
dwelling.

Although you were in the abode of the first official of the Empire th