He felt as it were a blow startling him from sleep.

His visitors tasked themselves to be strictly polite; they did not undervalue his resources for commanding respect between man and man.

The strange matter was behind their bearing, which indicated the positive impossibility of the union of Clotilde with one such as he, and struck at the curtain covering his history.

He could not raise it to thunder his defence of himself, or even allude to the implied contempt of his character: with a boiling gorge he was obliged to swallow both the history and the insult, returning them the equivalent of their courtesies, though it was on his lips to thunder heavily.
A second endeavour, in an urgent letter before nightfall to gain him admission to head-quarters, met the same repulse as the foregoing.

The bearer of it was dismissed without an answer.
Alvan passed a night of dire disturbance.