The young man was very pale:  his pinched features, his dull eyes, his blanched lips, in fact his whole appearance denoted either overwhelming fatigue or unusual sorrow.  All the servants had observed, that, during the past five days, their young master had not been in his ordinary condition:  he spoke but little, ate almost nothing, and refused to see any visitors.  His valet noticed that this singular change dated from the visit, on Sunday morning, of a certain M. Noel Gerdy, who had been closeted with him for three hours in the library.

The Viscount, gay as a lark until the arrival of this person, had, from the moment of his departure, the appearance of a man at the point of death.  When setting forth to meet his father, the viscount appeared to suffer so acutely that M. Lubin, his valet, entreated him not to go out; suggesting that it would be more prudent to retire to his room, and call in the doctor.

But the Count de Commarin was exacting on the score of filial duty, and would overlook the worst of youthful indiscretions sooner than what he termed a want of reverence.  He had announced his intended arrival by telegraph, twenty-four hours in advance; therefore the house was expected to be in perfect readiness to receive him, and the absence of Albert at the railway station would have been resented as a flagrant omission of duty.

The viscount had been but five minutes in the waiting-room, when the bell announced the arrival of the train.  Soon the doors leading on to the platform were opened, and the travelers crowded in.  The throng beginning to thin a little, the count appeared, followed by a servant, who carried a travelling pelisse lined with rare and valuable fur.

The Count de Commarin looked a good ten years less than his age.  His beard and hair, yet abundant, were scarcely gray.  He was tall and muscular, held himself upright, and carried his head high.  His appearance was noble, his movements easy.  His regular features presented a study to the physiognomist, all expressing easy, careless good nature, even to the handsome, smiling mouth; but in his eyes flashed the fiercest and the most arrogant pride.  This contrast revealed the secret of his character.  Imbued quite as deeply with aristocratic prejudice as the Marchioness d’Arlange, he had progressed with his century or at least appeared to have done so.  As fully as the marchioness, he held in contempt all who were not noble; but his disdain expressed itself in a different fashion.  The marchioness proclaimed her contempt loudly and coarsely; the count had kept eyes and ears open and had seen and heard a good deal.  She was stupid, and without a shade of common sense.  He was witty and sensible, and possessed enlarged views of life and politics.  She dreamed of the return of the absurd traditions of a former age; he hoped for things within the power of events to bring forth.  He was sincerely persuaded that the nobles of France would yet recover slowly and silently, but surely, all their lost power, with its prestige and influence.