on the
sleeves.--Good-morning, Jenkins. I am with you directly."

Jenkins bowed, and took a few steps in the immense room, of which the
windows, opening on a garden that extended as far as the Seine, framed
one of the finest views of Paris, the bridges, the Tuileries, the
Louvre, in a network of black trees traced as it were in Indian ink upon
the floating background of fog. A large and very low bed, raised by
a few steps above the floor, two or three little lacquer screens with
vague and capricious gilding, indicating, like the double doors and the
carpets of thick wool, a fear of cold pushed even to excess, various
seats, lounges, warmers, scattered about rather indiscriminately, all
low, rounded, indolent, or voluptuous in shape, composed the furniture
of this celebrated chamber in which the gravest questions and the most
frivolous were wont to be treated alike with the same seriousness. On
the wall was a handsome portrait of the duchess; on the chimneypiece a
bust of the duke, the work of Felicia Ruys, which at the recent Salon
had received the honours of a first medal.

"Well, Jenkins, how are we this morning?" said his excellency,
approaching, while the costumier was picking up his fashion-plates,
scattered over all the easy chairs.

"And you, my dear duke? I thought you a little pale last evening at the
Varietes."

"Come, come! I have never felt so well. Your pills have a most
marvellous effect upon me. I am conscious of a vivacity, a freshness,
when I remember how run down I was six months ago."

Jenkins, without saying anything, had laid his great head against the
fur-coat of the minister of state, at the place where, in common men,
the heart beats. He listened a moment while his excellency continued to
speak in the indolent, bored tone which was one of the characteristics
of his distinction.

"And who was your companion, doctor, last night? That huge, bronzed
Tartar who was laughing so loudly in the front of your box."

"It was the Nabob, _Monsieur le Duc_. The famous Jansoulet, about whom
people are talking so much just now."

"I ought to have guessed it. The whole house was watching him. The
actresses played for him alone. You know him? What sort of man is he?"

"I know him. That is to say, I attend him professionally.--Thank you,
my dear duke, I have finished. All is right in that region.--When
he arrived in Paris a month ago, he had found the change of climate
somewhat trying. He sent for me, a