A flash of hope shone in
her eyes; she thought perhaps that she could speculate on her first
husband's affection to gain her cause by some feminine cunning.

"I shall await your orders, madame, to know whether I am to report our
proceedings to you, or if you will come to my office to agree to the
terms of a compromise," said Derville, taking leave.

A week after Derville had paid these two visits, on a fine morning
in June, the husband and wife, who had been separated by an almost
supernatural chance, started from the opposite ends of Paris to meet in
the office of the lawyer who was engaged by both. The supplies liberally
advanced by Derville to Colonel Chabert had enabled him to dress as
suited his position in life, and the dead man arrived in a very decent
cab. He wore a wig suited to his face, was dressed in blue cloth with
white linen, and wore under his waistcoat the broad red ribbon of the
higher grade of the Legion of Honor. In resuming the habits of wealth he
had recovered his soldierly style. He held himself up; his face, grave
and mysterious-looking, reflected his happiness and all his hopes, and
seemed to have acquired youth and _impasto_, to borrow a picturesque
word from the painter's art. He was no more like the Chabert of the old
box-coat than a cartwheel double sou is like a newly coined forty-franc
piece. The passer-by, only to see him, would have recognized at once one
of the noble wrecks of our old army, one of the heroic men on whom
our national glory is reflected, as a splinter of ice on which the sun
shines seems to reflect every beam. These veterans are at once a picture
and a book.

When the Count jumped out of his carriage to go into Derville's office,
he did it as lightly as a young man. Hardly had his cab moved off,
when a smart brougham drove up, splendid with coats-of-arms. Madame
la Comtesse Ferraud stepped out in a dress which, though simple, was
cleverly designed to show how youthful her figure was. She wore a pretty
drawn bonnet lined with pink, which framed her face to perfection,
softening its outlines and making it look younger.

If the clients were rejuvenescent, the office was unaltered, and
presented the same picture as that described at the beginning of this
story. Simonnin was eating his breakfast, his shoulder leaning against
the window, which was then open, and he was staring up at the blue sky
in the opening of the courtyard enclosed by four gloomy houses.

"Ah, ha!"