But now this once was too much, for there was danger that this portrait taken three years before, and showing him with the hair and beard that he wished to suppress, might be discovered.  Without doubt there were few chances that a copy of it would be seen by Madame Dammauville; but if there existed only one against a hundred thousand, he must arrange it so that he need have no fear.

He had had a dozen copies of this photograph, but as his relatives were few, he kept the majority of them.  One he sent to his mother, who was living at that time; another went to the priest of his village, and later he had given one to Phillis.  He must, then, have nine in his possession.  He found them and burned them immediately.

Of the three that remained, only one might testify against him, the one belonging to Phillis.  But it would be easy for him to get it again on inventing some pretext, while as to the others, truly he had nothing to fear.

The real danger might come from the photographer, who perhaps had some of the photographs, and who undoubtedly preserved the negative.  This was his first errand the next day.

On entering the studio of this friend, he experienced a disagreeable feeling, which troubled him and made him uneasy; he had not given his name, and counting on the change made by the cutting of his hair and beard, he said to himself that his friend, who had not seen him for a long time, certainly would not recognize him.

He had taken but a few steps, his hat in his hand, like a stranger who is about to accost another, when the photographer came toward him with outstretched hand, and a friendly smile on his face.

“You, my dear friend!  What good fortune is worth the pleasure of your visit tome?  Can I be useful to you in any way?”

“You recognize me, then?”

“What!  Do I recognize you?  Do you ask that because you have cut your hair and beard?  Certainly it changes you and gives you a new physiognomy; but I should be unworthy of my business if, by a different arrangement of the hair, I could not recognize you.

“Besides, eyes of steel like yours are not forgotten; they are a description and a signature.”

Then this means in which he placed so much confidence was only a new imprudence, as the question, “You recognize me, then?” was a mistake.

“Come, I will pose you at once,” the photographer said.  “Very curious, this shaved head, and still more interesting, I think, than with the beard and long hair.  The traits of character are more clearly seen.”

“It is not for a new portrait that I have come, but for the old one.  Have you any of the proofs?”

“I think not, but I will see.  In any case, if you wish some they are easily made, since I have the plate.”

“Will you look them up?  For I have not a single proof left of those you gave me, and on looking at myself in the glass this morning I found such changes between my face of to-day and that of three years ago, that I would like to study them.  Certain ideas came to me on the expression of the physiognomy, that I wish to study, with something to support them.”