Jenkins dared.

The letter lay there, the first on a pile of others.  The grain of the paper, an address of three words dashed off in a simple, bold handwriting, and then the perfume, that intoxicating, suggestive perfume, the very breath of her divine lips—­It was true, then, his jealous love had not deceived him, nor the embarrassment she had shown in his presence for some time past, nor the secretive and rejuvenated airs of Constance, nor those bouquets magnificently blooming in the studio as in the shadow of an intrigue.  That indomitable pride had surrendered, then, at last?  But in that case, why not to him, Jenkins?  To him who had loved her for so long—­always; who was ten years younger than the other man, and who certainly was troubled with no cold shiverings!  All these thoughts passed through his head like arrows shot from a tireless bow.  And, stabbed through and through, torn to pieces, his eyes blinded, he stood there looking at the little satiny and cold envelope which he did not dare open for fear of dismissing a final doubt, when the rustling of a curtain warned him that some one had just come in.  He threw the letter back quickly, and closed the wonderfully adjusted drawer of the lacquered table.

“Ah! it is you, Jansoulet.  How is it you are here?”

“His excellency told me to come and wait for him in his room,” replied the Nabob, very proud of being thus introduced into the privacy of the apartments, at an hour, especially, when visitors were not generally received.  As a fact, the duke was beginning to show a real liking for this savage, for several reasons:  to begin with, he liked audacious people, adventurers who followed their lucky star.  Was he not one of them himself?  Then, the Nabob amused him; his accent, his frank manners, his rather coarse and impudent flattery, were a change for him from the eternal conventionality of his surroundings, from that scourge of administrative and court life which he held in horror—­the set speech—­in such great horror that he never finished a sentence which he had begun.  The Nabob had an unforeseen way of finishing his which was sometimes full of surprises.  A fine gambler as well, losing games of ecarte at five thousand francs the fish without flinching.  And so convenient when one wanted to get rid of a picture, always ready to buy, no matter at what price.  To these motives of condescending kindness there had come to be joined of late a sentiment of pity and indignation in the face of the tenacity with which the unfortunate man was being persecuted, the cowardly and merciless war so ably managed, that public opinion, always credulous and with neck outstretched to see which way the wind is blowing, was beginning to be seriously influenced.  One must do to Mora the justice of admitting that he was no follower of the crowd.  When he had seen in a corner of the gallery the simple but rather piteous and discomfited face of the Nabob, he had thought it cowardly to receive him there, and had sent him up to his private room.