Compte de Lormerin had just finished dressing. He cast a parting glance at the large
mirror which occupied an entire panel in his dressing-room and smiled.
He was really a fine-looking man still, although quite gray. Tall, slight, elegant, with no
sign of a paunch, with a small mustache of doubtful shade, which might be called fair, he
had a walk, a nobility, a "chic," in short, that indescribable something which establishes a
greater difference between two men than would millions of money. He murmured:
"Lormerin is still alive!"
And he went into the drawing-room where his correspondence awaited him.
On his table, where everything had its place, the work table of the gentleman who never
works, there were a dozen letters lying beside three newspapers of different opinions.
With a single touch he spread out all these letters, like a gambler giving the choice of a
card; and he scanned the handwriting, a thing he did each morning before opening the
envelopes.
It was for him a moment of delightful expectancy, of inquiry and vague anxiety. What
did these sealed mysterious letters bring him? What did they contain of pleasure, of
happiness, or of grief? He surveyed them with a rapid sweep of the eye, recognizing the
writing, selecting them, making two or three lots, according to what he expected from
them. Here, friends; there, persons to whom he was indifferent; further on, strangers. The
last kind always gave him a little uneasiness. What did they want from him? What hand
had traced those curious characters full of thoughts, promises, or threats?
This day one letter in particular caught his eye. It was simple, nevertheless, without
seeming to reveal anything; but he looked at it uneasily, with a sort of chill at his heart.
He thought: "From whom can it be? I certainly know this writing, and yet I can't identify
it."
He raised it to a level with his face, holding it delicately between two fingers, striving to
read through the envelope, without making up his mind to open it.
Then he smelled it, and snatched up from the table a little magnifying glass which he
used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He suddenly felt unnerved. "Whom is it
from? This hand is familiar to me, very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes,
very often. But this must have been a long, long time ago. Whom the deuce can it be
from? Pooh! it's only somebody asking for money."
And he tore open the letter. Then he read:
