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livery, all of whom had risen in his honor, touched lightly with his
finger the great cage of monkeys capering about with shrill cries, and
darted whistling up the white marble stairs covered with a carpet soft
and dense as a lawn, to the duke's apartments. Although he had been
coming to the hotel de Mora for six months, the good doctor had not yet
become hardened to the purely physical impression of cheerfulness and
lightness of heart caused by the atmosphere of that house.

Although it was the abode of the highest functionary of the Empire,
there was nothing to suggest the departments or their boxes of dusty
documents. The duke had consented to accept the exalted post of
Minister of State and President of the Council only on condition that
he need not leave his house; that he should go to the department only
an hour or two a day, long enough to affix his signatures to documents
that required it, and that he should hold his audiences in his bedroom.
At that moment, although it was so early, the salon was full. There
were serious, anxious faces, provincial prefects with shaven lips and
administrative whiskers, something less arrogant in that reception-room
than in their prefectures; magistrates, stern of manner, dignified of
gesture; deputies full of importance, shining lights of finance,
substantial manufacturers from the country; and among them could be
distinguished, here and there, the thin ambitious face of a deputy
councillor to some prefecture, in the garb of a solicitor, black coat
and white cravat; and one and all, standing or seated, alone or in
groups, silently forced with a glance the lock of that lofty door,
closed upon their destinies, from which they would come forth in a
moment, triumphant or crestfallen. Jenkins walked rapidly through the
crowd, and every one followed with an envious eye this new arrival,
whom the usher, in his chain of office, frigid and correct in his
bearing, seated at a table beside the door, greeted with a smile that
was both respectful and familiar.

"Who is with him?" the doctor inquired, pointing to the duke's room.

With the end of his lips, and not without a slightly ironical twinkle
of the eye, the usher murmured a name, which, if they had heard it,
would have angered all those exalted personages who had been waiting an
hour for the _costumier_ of the opera to finish his audience.

A murmur of voices, a flash of light--Jenkins had entered the duke's
presence; _