cane, the top of which,
made of gold, glittered in the sunshine. The first man might have cut
off a head with his own hand, but the second was capable of entangling
innocence, virtue, and beauty in the nets of calumny and intrigue, and
then poisoning them or drowning them. The rubicund stranger would have
comforted his victim with a jest; the other was incapable of a smile.
The first was forty-five years old, and he loved, undoubtedly, both
women and good cheer. Such men have passions which keep them slaves
to their calling. But the young man was plainly without passions and
without vices. If he was a spy he belonged to diplomacy, and did such
work from a pure love of art. He conceived, the other executed; he was
the idea, the other was the form.

"This must be Gondreville, is it not, my good woman?" said the young
man.

"We don't say 'my good woman' here," said Michu. "We are still simple
enough to say 'citizen' and 'citizeness' in these parts."

"Ah!" exclaimed the young man, in a natural way, and without seeming at
all annoyed.

Players of ecarte often have a sense of inward disaster when some
unknown person sits down at the same table with them, whose manners,
look, voice, and method of shuffling the cards, all, to their fancy,
foretell defeat. The instant Michu looked at the young man he felt an
inward and prophetic collapse. He was struck by a fatal presentiment; he
had a sudden confused foreboding of the scaffold. A voice told him that
that dandy would destroy him, although there was nothing whatever in
common between them. For this reason his answer was rude; he was and he
wished to be forbidding.

"Don't you belong to the Councillor of State, Malin?" said the younger
man.

"I am my own master," answered Malin.

"Mesdames," said the young man, assuming a most polite air, "are we not
at Gondreville? We are expected there by Monsieur Malin."

"There's the park," said Michu, pointing to the open gate.

"Why are you hiding that gun, my fine girl?" said the elder, catching
sight of the carbine as he passed through the gate.

"You never let a chance escape you, even in the country!" cried his
companion.

They both turned back with a sense of distrust which the bailiff
understood at once in spite of their impassible faces. Marthe let them
look at the gun, to the tune of Couraut's bark; she was so convinced
that her husband was meditating some evil deed that she was thankful for
the curiosity of the stra