This letter, which he read slowly, thoroughly, even to the spaces between the words and the lines, made such a keen impression on the Nabob that, instead of going to bed, he went at once to his young secretary. Paul occupied a study at the end of the suite of salons, where he slept on a couch, a provisional arrangement which he had never cared to change. The whole house was still asleep. As he walked through the long line of great salons, which were not used for evening receptions, so that the curtains were always open and at that moment admitted the uncertain light of a Parisian dawn, the Nabob paused, impressed by the melancholy aspect that his magnificent surroundings presented. In the heavy odor of tobacco and various liquors that filled the rooms, the furniture, the wainscotings, the decorations seemed faded yet still new. Stains on the crumpled satin, ashes soiling the beautiful marbles, marks of boots on the carpet reminded him of a huge first-class railway carriage, bearing the marks of the indolence, impatience and ennui of a long journey, with the destructive contempt of the public for a luxury for which it has paid. Amid that stage scenery, all in position and still warm from the ghastly comedy that was played there every day, his own image, reflected in twenty cold, pale mirrors, rose before him, at once ominous and comical, ill-at-ease in his fashionable clothes, with bloated cheeks and face inflamed and dirty. What an inevitable and disenchanting morrow to the insane life he was leading! He lost himself for a moment in gloomy thoughts; then, with the vigorous shrug of the shoulders which was so familiar in him, that packman's gesture with which he threw off any too painful preoccupation, he resumed the burden which every man carries with him, and which causes the back to bend more or less, according to his courage or his strength, and entered de Gery's room, where he found him already dressed and standing in front of his open desk, arranging papers. "First of all, my boy," said Jansoulet, closing the door softly on their interview, "answer me this question frankly. Are the motives set forth in your letter your real motives for resolving to leave me? Isn't there underneath it all one of these infamous stories that I know are being circulated against me in Paris? I am sure you would be frank enough to tell me, and to give me a chance to--to set myself right in your eyes." Paul assured him that he had no other reasons for going, but that those he had mentioned were surely sufficient, as it was a matter of conscience.