At this moment his eyes, deep-blue and piercing none the less, expressed, as did his whole haughty countenance, the most complete and heartfelt satisfaction. His lips laughed gaily and disclosed his large white teeth, of which not one was missing. He had beside him two men of his circle whom Landri knew very well, a M. de Bressieux and a M. de Charlus. The latter, who was very small, almost puny, seemed a dwarf beside the superb master of the hunt. His refined features also savored of race, but of a meagre and worn-out type. He was only fifty-five, but he was the older man. Bressieux, who was younger, was more comely of aspect, and yet there was in his face a something which vitiated it, and his cold arrogance contrasted no less strangely with the simple grand manners of the marquis. At that short distance Landri was able to study the group in detail with almost photographic accuracy, and he felt once more the sentiment of which he had told Madame Olier, a heartfelt admiration for his father. Monsieur de Claviers-Grandchamp realized in every respect the physically and mentally superior type of aristocrat, of the best. He was built of a more ample, richer human material. What a difference between his generous, his magnificent way of carrying off his rank, and the bickerings of Charlus about questions of precedence! That was the sole, contemptible occupation of that most refined and upright man, who was nevertheless hypnotized by trivial details concerning his nobility, though it was of the most authentic! What a difference, too, between the spontaneous geniality of Monsieur de Claviers and the obsequiousness of a semi-sharper which Bressieux displayed beneath his assumption of importance, in order to maintain the course of an ultra fashionable life by doubtful expedients. Very well born and well connected, endowed moreover with taste, education, shrewdness and much dexterity, he acted as intermediary between people of his own station, who were straitened in their circumstances, and the dealers in curios or wealthy collectors. Upon what terms? No one had ever dreamed of asking the question of that individual with the face of a gambler and duellist, ruined by cards and women, but who had retained the most impeccable manners and the most virile courage of his race. In Charlus and in Bressieux their caste was drawing near its end. In the marquis, however, caste might be unemployed, but it was intact. To his son he seemed so perfectly the _grand seigneur_ in his bearing even at that moment, when the picturesque amusement of the day came to an end in the most bourgeois of occupations: a cold luncheon eaten in the open air! He went from one to another of his guests, from carriage to carriage, assisted in that hospitable duty by a young woman in a riding habit, who had followed the hunt on horseback, without taking part in it. Landri recognized one of his partners at the infrequent balls which he had attended during the last two winters.