So saying, she held out the letter to him.

At this moment Claude Vignon entered the room.  At his unexpected apparition Calyste and Felicite were both silent for a moment,—­she from surprise, he from a vague uneasiness.  The vast forehead, broad and high, of the new-comer, who was bald at the age of thirty-seven, now seemed darkened by annoyance.  His firm, judicial mouth expressed a habit of chilling sarcasm.  Claude Vignon is imposing, in spite of the precocious deteriorations of a face once magnificent, and now grown haggard.  Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five he strongly resembled the divine Raffaelle.  But his nose, that feature of the human face that changes most, is growing to a point; the countenance is sinking into mysterious depressions, the outlines are thickening; leaden tones predominate in the complexion, giving tokens of weariness, although the fatigues of this young man are not apparent; perhaps some bitter solitude has aged him, or the abuse of his gift of comprehension.  He scrutinizes the thought of every one, yet without definite aim or system.  The pickaxe of his criticism demolishes, it never constructs.  Thus his lassitude is that of a mechanic, not of an architect.  The eyes, of a pale blue, once brilliant, are clouded now by some hidden pain, or dulled by gloomy sadness.  Excesses have laid dark tints above the eyelids; the temples have lost their freshness.  The chin, of incomparable distinction, is getting doubled, but without dignity.  His voice, never sonorous, is weakening; without being either hoarse or extinct, it touches the confines of hoarseness and extinction.  The impassibility of that fine head, the fixity of that glance, cover irresolution and weakness, which the keenly intelligent and sarcastic smile belies.  The weakness lies wholly in action, not in thought; there are traces of an encyclopedic comprehension on that brow, and in the habitual movement of a face that is childlike and splendid both.  The man is tall, slightly bent already, like all those who bear the weight of a world of thought.  Such long, tall bodies are never remarkable for continuous effort or creative activity.  Charlemagne, Belisarious, and Constantine are noted exceptions to this rule.

Certainly Claude Vignon presents a variety of mysteries to be solved.  In the first place, he is very simple and very wily.  Though he falls into excesses with the readiness of a courtesan, his powers of thought remain untouched.  Yet his intellect, which is competent to criticise art, science, literature, and politics, is incompetent to guide his external life.  Claude contemplates himself within the domain of his intellectual kingdom, and abandons his outer man with Diogenic indifference.  Satisfied to penetrate all, to comprehend all by thought, he despises materialities; and yet, if it becomes a question of creating, doubt assails him; he sees obstacles, he is not inspired by beauties, and while he is debating means, he sits