From his firm step, his placid
face, one would never imagine that, after an evening of emotion and
excitement, after a secret visit to his mistress, he had passed the
night by the pillow of a dying woman, and that woman his mother, or at
least one who had filled his mother's place.
What a contrast between him and the magistrate!
M. Daburon had not slept either: but one could easily see that in his
feebleness, in his anxious look, in the dark, circles about his eyes.
His shirt-front was all rumpled, and his cuffs were far from clean.
Carried away by the course of events, the mind had forgotten the body.
Noel's well-shaved chin, on the contrary, rested upon an irreproachably
white cravat; his collar did not show a crease; his hair and his
whiskers had been most carefully brushed. He bowed to M. Daburon, and
held out the summons he had received.
"You summoned me, sir," he said; "and I am here awaiting your orders."
The investigating magistrate had met the young advocate several times in
the lobbies of the Palais; and he knew him well by sight. He remembered
having heard M. Gerdy spoken of as a man of talent and promise,
whose reputation was fast rising.
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