“It is impossible,” suddenly said the Minister of State, rising. “Take that away, Lartigues; you must return to-morrow. I cannot write. I am too cold. See, doctor; feel my hands--one would think that they had just come out of a pail of iced water. For the last two days my whole body has been the same. Isn’t it too absurd, in this weather!” “I am not surprised,” muttered the Irishman, in a sullen, curt tone, rarely heard from that honeyed personage. The door had closed upon the young _attache_, bearing off his papers with majestic dignity, but very happy, I imagine, to feel himself free and to be able to stroll for an hour or two, before returning to the Ministry, in the Tuileries gardens, full of spring frocks and pretty girls sitting near the still empty chairs round the band, under the chestnut-trees in flower, through which from root to summit there ran the great thrill of the month when nests are built. The _attache_ was certainly not frozen. Jenkins, silently, examined his patient, sounded him, and tapped his chest; then, in the same rough tone which might be explained by his anxious devotion, the annoyance of the doctor who sees his orders transgressed: “Ah, now, my dear duke, what sort of life have you been living lately?” He knew from the gossip of the antechamber--in the case of his regular clients the doctor did not disdain this--he knew that the duke had a new favourite, that this caprice of recent date possessed him, excited him in an extraordinary measure, and the fact, taken together with other observations made elsewhere, had implanted in Jenkins’s mind a suspicion, a mad desire to know the name of this new mistress. It was this that he was trying to read on the pale face of his patient, attempting to fathom the depth of his thoughts rather than the origin of his malady. But he had to deal with one of those faces which are hermetically sealed, like those little coffers with a secret spring which hold jewels and women’s letters, one of those discreet natures closed by a cold, blue eye, a glance of steel by which the most astute perspicacity may be baffled. “You are mistaken, doctor,” replied his excellency tranquilly. “I have made no changes in my habits.” “Very well, M. le Duc, you have done wrong,” remarked the Irishman abruptly, furious at having made no discovery. And then, feeling that he was going too far, he gave vent to his bad temper and to the severity of his diagnosis in words which were a tissue of banalities and axioms. One ought to take care. Medicine was not magic. The power of the Jenkins pearls was limited by human strength, by the necessities of age, by the resources of nature, which, unfortunately, are not inexhaustible. The duke interrupted him in an irritable tone: “Come, Jenkins, you know very well that I don’t like phrases. I am not all right, then? What is the matter with me? What is the reason of this chilliness?” “It is anaemia, exhaustion--a sinking of the oil in the lamp.” “What must I do?”