At last it came his turn to enter the sanctum, and if any shadow of doubt concerning Maitre Le Merquier remained in his mind, that doubt vanished when he saw that high-studded office, simple and severe in appearance,--although somewhat more decorated than the waiting-room--of which the advocate made a framework for his rigid principles and his long, thin, stooping, narrow-shouldered person, eternally squeezed into a black coat too short in the sleeves, from which protruded two flat, square, black hands, two clubs of India ink covered with swollen veins like hieroglyphics. In the clerical deputy's sallow complexion, the complexion of the Lyonnais turned mouldy between his two rivers, there was a certain animation, due to his varying expression, sometimes sparkling but impenetrable behind his spectacles, more frequently keen, suspicious and threatening over those same spectacles, and surrounded by the retreating shadow which follows the arch of the eyebrow when the eye is raised and the head low. After a greeting that was almost cordial in comparison with the cold salutation which the two colleagues exchanged at the Chamber, an "I was expecting you," uttered with a purpose perhaps, the advocate waved the Nabob to the chair near his desk, bade the smug domestic, dressed in black from head to foot, not to "tighten the sack-cloth with the scourge," but to stay away until the bell should ring for him, arranged a few scattered papers, and then, crossing his legs, burying himself in his armchair in the crouching attitude of the man who is making ready to listen, who becomes all ears, he took his chin in his hand and sat with his eyes fixed on a long curtain of green ribbed velvet that fell from the ceiling to the floor opposite him. It was a decisive moment, an embarrassing situation. But Jansoulet did not hesitate. It was one of the poor Nabob's boasts that he understood men as well as Mora. And the keen scent, which, he said, had never deceived him, warned him that he was at that moment in presence of a rigid, immovable honesty, a conscience of solid rock unassailable by pick-axe or powder. "My conscience!" So he suddenly changed his programme, cast aside the stratagems, the equivocal hints, in which his open, courageous nature was wallowing about, and with head erect and heart laid bare, talked to that upright man in a language which he was built to understand. "Do not be surprised, my dear colleague,"--his voice trembled at first, but soon became firm in his conviction of the justice of his cause--"do not be surprised that I have come to see you here instead of simply asking to be heard by the third committee. The explanations that I have to put before you are of such a delicate and confidential nature that it would have been impossible for me to give them in a public place, before my assembled colleagues."