ere
was nothing here suggestive of the work of government or its boxes
of dusty old papers. The duke had only consented to accept his high
dignitaries as Minister of State and President of the Council upon the
condition that he should not quit his private mansion; he only went
to his office for an hour or two daily, the time necessary to give the
indispensable signatures, and held his receptions in his bed-chamber.
At this moment, notwithstanding the earliness of the hour, the hall was
crowded. You saw there grave, anxious faces, provincial prefects with
shaven lips, and administrative whiskers, slightly less arrogant in this
antechamber than yonder in their prefectures, magistrates of austere
air, sober in gesture, deputies important of manner, big-wigs of the
financial world, rich and boorish manufacturers, among whom stood out
here and there the slender, ambitious figure of some substitute of a
prefectorial councillor, in the garb of one seeking a favour, dress-coat
and white tie; and all, standing, sitting in groups or solitary, sought
silently to penetrate with their gaze that high door closed upon their
destiny, by which they would issue forth directly triumphant or with
cast-down head. Jenkins passed through the crowd rapidly, and every one
followed with an envious eye this newcomer whom the doorkeeper, with
his official chain, correct and icy in his demeanour, seated at a table
beside the door, greeted with a little smile at once respectful and
familiar.

"Who is with him?" asked the doctor, indicating the chamber of the duke.

Hardly moving his lips, and not without a slightly ironical glance of
the eye, the doorkeeper whispered a name which, if they had heard it,
would have roused the indignation of all these high personages who had
been waiting for an hour past until the costumier of the opera should
have ended his audience.

A sound of voices, a ray of light. Jenkins had just entered the duke's
presence; he never waited, he.

Standing with his back to the fireplace, closely wrapped in a
dressing-jacket of blue fur, the soft reflections from which gave an
air of refinement to an energetic and haughty head, the President of the
Council was causing to be designed under his eyes a Pierrette costume
for the duchess to wear at her next ball, and was giving his directions
with the same gravity with which he would have dictated the draft of a
new law.

"Let the frill be very fine on the ruff, and put no frills