The Count de Brensault was a small man, with a large pale face.

There were puffy little bags under his eyes, from which the colour had departed.

His hair, though skilfully arranged, was very thin at the top, and his figure had the lumpiness of the man who has never known any sort of athletic training.

He looked a dozen years older than his age, which was in reality thirty-five, and for the last ten years he had been a constant though cautious devotee of every form of dissipation.

Jeanne, who sat by his side at dinner-time, found herself looking at him more than once in a sort of fascinated wonder.