Business was never talked when Julien appeared in the evening in his blue suit. The kindness of the marquis was so flattering to the self-respect of our hero, which was always morbidly sensitive, that in spite of himself, he soon came to feel a kind of attachment for this nice old man. It is not that Julien was a man of sensibility as the phrase is understood at Paris, but he was not a monster, and no one since the death of the old major had talked to him with so much kindness. He observed that the marquis showed a politeness and consideration for his own personal feelings which he had never found in the old surgeon. He now realised that the surgeon was much prouder of his cross than was the marquis of his blue ribbon. The marquis's father had been a great lord. One day, at the end of a morning audience for the transaction of business, when the black suit was worn, Julien happened to amuse the marquis who kept him for a couple of hours, and insisted on giving him some banknotes which his nominee had just brought from the house. "I hope M. le Marquis, that I am not deviating from the profound respect which I owe you, if I beg you to allow me to say a word." "Speak, my friend." "M. le Marquis will deign to allow me to refuse this gift. It is not meant for the man in the black suit, and it would completely spoil those manners which you have kindly put up with in the man in the blue suit." He saluted with much respect and went out without looking at his employer. This incident amused the marquis. He told it in the evening to the abbé Pirard. "I must confess one thing to you, my dear abbé. I know Julien's birth, and I authorise you not to regard this confidence as a secret." His conduct this morning is noble, thought the marquis, so I will ennoble him myself. Some time afterwards the marquis was able to go out. "Go and pass a couple of months at London," he said to Julien. "Ordinary and special couriers will bring you the letters I have received, together with my notes. You will write out the answers and send them back to me, putting each letter inside the answer. I have ascertained that the delay will be no more than five days." As he took the post down the Calais route, Julien was astonished at the triviality of the alleged business on which he had been sent. We will say nothing about the feeling of hate and almost horror with which he touched English soil. His mad passion for Bonaparte is already known. He saw in every officer a Sir Hudson Low, in every great noble a Lord Bathurst, ordering the infamies of St. Helena and being recompensed by six years of office. At London he really got to know the meaning of sublime fatuity. He had struck up a friendship with some young Russian nobles who initiated him. "Your future is assured, my dear Sorel," they said to him. "You naturally have that cold demeanour, _a thousand leagues away from the sensation one has at the moment_, that we have been making such efforts to acquire."