Madame Desvarennes was entertaining her visitors in these celebrated apartments that evening.  Marechal and Pierre had just come in, and were talking together near the fireplace.  A few steps from them was a group, consisting of Cayrol, Madame Desvarennes, and a third person, who had never until then put his foot in the house, in spite of intercessions in his favor made by the banker to Madame Desvarennes.  He was a tall, pale, thin man, whose skin seemed stretched on his bones, with a strongly developed under-jaw, like that of a ravenous animal, and eyes of indefinable color, always changing, and veiled behind golden-rimmed spectacles.  His hands were soft and smooth, with moist palms and closely cut nails—­vicious hands, made to take cunningly what they coveted.  He had scanty hair, of a pale yellow, parted just above the ear, so as to enable him to brush it over the top of his head.  This personage, clad in a double-breasted surtout, over a white waistcoat, and wearing a many-colored rosette, was called Hermann Herzog.

A daring financier, he had come from Luxembourg, preceded by a great reputation; and, in a few months, he had launched in Paris such a series of important affairs that the big-wigs on the Exchange felt bound to treat with him.  There were many rumors current about him.  Some said he was the most intelligent, most active, and most scrupulous of men that it was possible to meet.  Others said that no greater scoundrel had ever dared the vengeance of the law, after plundering honest people.  Of German nationality, those who cried him down said he was born at Mayence.  Those who treated the rumors as legends said he was born at Frankfort, the most Gallic town beyond the river Rhine.

He had just completed an important line of railway from Morocco to the centre of our colony in Algeria, and now he was promoting a company for exporting grain and flour from America.  Several times Cayrol had tried to bring Herzog and Madame Desvarennes together.  The banker had an interest in the grain and flour speculation, but he asserted that it would not succeed unless the mistress had a hand in it.  Cayrol had a blind faith in the mistress’s luck.

Madame Desvarennes, suspicious of everything foreign, and perfectly acquainted with the rumors circulated respecting Herzog, had always refused to receive him.  But Cayrol had been so importunate that, being quite tired of refusing, and, besides, being willing to favor Cayrol for having so discreetly managed the negotiations of Micheline’s marriage, she had consented.

Herzog had just arrived.  He was expressing to Madame Desvarennes his delight at being admitted to her house.  He had so often heard her highly spoken of that he had formed a high idea of her, but one which was, however, far below the reality; he understood now that it was an honor to be acquainted with her.  He wheedled her with German grace, and with a German-Jewish accent, which reminds one of the itinerant merchants, who offer you with persistence “a goot pargain.”