The private office of Lecazes was reached from the outside by an antechamber with apparently but one entry, that of the rear, leading to the hall and before which hung a green silk portière brocaded in yellow palms. The walls of the office were covered with green silk laid on in squares and retained in place by carved gilt-edged mahogany strips. The floor was a mosaic of rare and variegated woods which in their natural tints formed a Grecian fret encircling a serpent-locked head of Medusa. There were swan-formed sofas and chairs and stools of artistically wrought brass, depicting processions of nymphs with airy coiffures, slender necks and beribboned sandals, or groups of cupids bearing hymeneal torches. A splendid bronze railing surrounded the desk on which stood an inkstand with the figure of Laocoön struggling in the coils of serpents. The Laocoön and the Medusa, strongly suggestive of martyrdom and despair, could not be more fittingly placed. Above the baron's seat, a canopy overhung the portrait of the reigning king, Louis XVIII. Lecazes was seated and although many papers lay before him, he was not busy. His attitude was meditative, his head resting in the left hand, while his right fingered a silver pen tipped with steel. It would have been difficult to classify the quality of his meditation--to determine whether it was artful or idle. His face was keenly intelligent and in public it expressed an ingenious frankness, with an affability too unremitting to be sincere, and a smile half abstracted and half mellow, which, when in solitude was replaced by lines of astute and tenacious determination. It was the expression of a man who travels without deviation to his ends. As superintendent of the restored monarch, he was impelled to display greater vigor than as the superintendent of the great Corsican. In the latter capacity he was guided by a superior genius; in the former he stood back of the throne to guard the government--including himself. "What would become of them without me?" Lecazes asked himself, on the successful termination of a coup. "It is often necessary to act without consulting. There are questions which must not be asked. I am the contriver. I direct the play and they are the audience. Much cause for congratulation is it if I can prevent them and their vengeful partisans of the south from spoiling the plot." The baron's reflections were not those of one who seeks a path amid thorns and thistles. They had, rather, to do with the balancing of probabilities and the best way to carry out his purpose. Suddenly he began to arrange the documents, some of which he tied together. After extracting and reading a letter over and over, he placed that important paper in his pocket-book.