To complete his portrait:  he was of medium size, square, and stout; panting when he ascended stairs, or even walking on level ground; a face massive and broad as a mask, and reminding one of those fabled beings who blew fire from their nostrils; a huge moustache, white and grizzly; small gray eyes, always fixed, like those of a doll, but still terrible.  He marched toward a man slowly, imposingly, with eyes fixed, as if beginning a duel to the death, and demanded of him imperatively—­the time of day!

Camors well knew this innocent weakness of his host, but, notwithstanding, was its dupe for one instant during the evening.

They had left the dining-table, and he was standing carelessly in the alcove of a window, holding a cup of coffee, when the General approached him from the extreme end of the room with a severe yet confidential expression, which seemed to preface an announcement of the greatest importance.

The postscript rose before him.  He felt he was to have an immediate explanation.

The General approached, seized him by the buttonhole, and withdrawing him from the depth of the recess, looked into his eyes as if he wished to penetrate his very soul.  Suddenly he spoke, in his thunderous voice.  He said: 

“What do you take in the morning, young man?”

“Tea, General.”

“Aha!  Then give your orders to Pierre—­just as if you were at home;” and, turning on his heel and joining the ladies, he left Camors to digest his little comedy as he might.

Eight days passed.  Twice the General made his guest the object of his formidable advance.  The first time, having put him out of countenance, he contented himself with exclaiming: 

“Well, young man!” and turned on his heel.

The next time he bore down upon Camors, he said not a word, and retired in silence.

Evidently the General had not the slightest recollection of the postscript.  Camors tried to be contented, but would continually ask himself why he had come to Campvallon, in the midst of his family, of whom he was not overfond, and in the depths of the country, which he execrated.  Luckily, the castle boasted a library well stocked with works on civil and international law, jurisprudence, and political economy.  He took advantage of it; and, resuming the thread of those serious studies which had been broken off during his period of hopelessness, plunged into those recondite themes that pleased his active intelligence and his awakened ambition.  Thus he waited patiently until politeness would permit him to bring to an explanation the former friend and companion-in-arms of his father.  In the morning he rode on horseback; gave a lesson in fencing to his cousin Sigismund, the son of Madame de la Roche-Jugan; then shut himself up in the library until the evening, which he passed at bezique with the General.  Meantime he viewed with the eye of a philosopher the strife of the covetous relatives who hovered around their rich prey.