He had been busy with some book-keeping, which he did every morning; and his wife had had to send after him.
"You are still in good time," said M.Daburon: "but we shall soon have plenty of work: so you had better get your paper ready." Five minutes later, the usher introduced M.Noel Gerdy.

He entered with an easy manner, like an advocate who was well acquainted with the Palais, and who knew its winding ways.

He in no wise resembled, this morning, old Tabaret's friend; still less could he have been recognized as Madame Juliette's lover.

He was entirely another being, or rather he had resumed his every-day bearing.

From his firm step, his placid face, one would never imagine that, after an evening of emotion and excitement, after a secret visit to his mistress, he had passed the night by the pillow of a dying woman, and that woman his mother, or at least one who had filled his mother's place.
What a contrast between him and the magistrate! M.Daburon had not slept either: but one could easily see that in his feebleness, in his anxious look, in the dark, circles about his eyes.
His shirt-front was all rumpled, and his cuffs were far from clean.
Carried away by the course of events, the mind had forgotten the body.
Noel's well-shaved chin, on the contrary, rested upon an irreproachably white cravat; his collar did not show a crease; his hair and his whiskers had been most carefully brushed.