“Faith,” said Valette, “I believe that she surpasses, in the philosophy of love, all the Sixtes in the world and in the demi-world too.” The two friends laughed gayly, then the judge gave the order to call the philosopher. The curious one, while shaking hands with Vilette and saying: “Good-by till evening, precisely at eight o’clock,” winked his eye behind his single eyeglass in order the better to unmask the illustrious writer whom he knew from having read the piquant extracts from the “Theory of the Passions,” in the newspapers. The appearance of the good man, at once timid and eccentric, who entered the judge’s office with the most visible embarrassment, contradicted so plainly the idea of the biting misanthrope, cruel and disillusioned, who was outlined in their imagination, that the man-about-town and the magistrate exchanged a look of astonishment. A smile came irresistibly to their lips, but only for a moment. The friend was already gone. The other motioned to the witness to take a seat in one of the green velvet arm chairs with which the room was furnished, a luxury completed, in the administrative manner, by a green moquette carpet and a mahogany writing desk. The face of the judge had resumed its gravity. These changes from one attitude to another are much more sincere than those imagine who observe these contrasts of bearing between the private man and the functionary. The perfect social comedian, who holds his profession in perfect contempt, is happily a very rare monster. We have not this strength of scepticism in the service of our hypocrisies. The witty M. Valette, so popular in the demi-monde, the friend of sporting men, emulated by journalists in witticisms, and who had just now commented gayly upon the remark of a bold woman with whom he should dine in the evening, found no trouble to give place to the severe and coolly skillful magistrate whose business it was to find out the truth in the name of the law. If his eye became suddenly acute it was that he might penetrate to the bottom of the consciousness of the newcomer. In these first moments of conversation with one whom it is their purpose to make talk, even against his own will, born magistrates experience a kind of awakening of their militant nature, like fencers who try the play of an unknown adversary. The philosopher found that his presentiments had not deceived him, for he saw, written in large letters on the bundle of papers which M. Valette took up these words: “Greslon Case.” Silence reigned in the room broken only by the rustling of paper and the scratching of the clerk’s pen. This person was preparing to take down the interrogatory with that impersonal indifference which distinguishes men accustomed to play the part of machine in the drama of judicial life. One case to them is as much like another as one death is like another to an employee of an undertaker, or one invalid like another to a hospital attendant.