“Oh, for shame—­a nobleman!” said Jenkins, with the indignation of a lofty soul refusing to believe in baseness.

Monpavon continued, without seeming to hear: 

“All that because the horses came from Mora’s stable.”

“It is true that the dear Nabob’s heart is very full of the duke.  I am about to make him very happy, therefore, when I inform him——­”

The doctor paused, embarrassed.

“When you inform him of what, Jenkins?”

Somewhat abashed, Jenkins had to confess that he had obtained permission from his excellency to present to him his friend Jansoulet.  Scarcely had he finished his sentence before a tall spectre, with flabby face and hair and whiskers diversely coloured, bounded from the dressing-room into the chamber, with his two hands folding round a fleshless but very erect neck a dressing-gown of flimsy silk with violet spots, in which he was wrapped like a sweetmeat in its paper.  The most striking thing about this mock-heroic physiognomy was a large curved nose all shiny with cold cream, and an eye alive, keen, too young, too bright, for the heavy and wrinkled eyelid which covered it.  Jenkins’s patients all had that eye.

Monpavon must indeed have been deeply moved to show himself thus devoid of all prestige.  In point of fact, with white lips and a changed voice he addressed the doctor quickly, without the lisp this time, and in a single outburst: 

“Come now, mon cher, no tomfoolery between us, eh?  We are both met before the same dish, but I leave you your share.  I intend that you shall leave me mine.”

And Jenkins’s air of astonishment did not make him pause.  “Let this be said once for all.  I have promised the Nabob to present him to the duke, just as, formerly, I presented you.  Do not mix yourself up, therefore, with what concerns me alone.”

Jenkins laid his hand on his heart, protested his innocence.  He had never had any intention.  Certainly Monpavon was too intimate a friend of the duke, for any other—­How could he have supposed?

“I suppose nothing,” said the old nobleman, calmer but still cold.  “I merely desired to have a very clear explanation with you on this subject.”

The Irishman extended a widely opened hand.

“My dear marquis, explanations are always clear between men of honour.”

“Honour is a big word, Jenkins.  Let us say people of deportment—­that suffices.”

And that deportment, which he invoked as the supreme guide of conduct, recalling him suddenly to the sense of his ludicrous situation, the marquis offered one finger to his friend’s demonstrative shake of the hand, and passed back with dignity behind his curtain, while the other left, in haste to resume his round.