But as I advanced he looked towards me with the utmost composure; with a face mild and almost benign, in which I strove in vain to read the traces of last night's passion.

So that it flashed across me that if this man really stood (and afterwards I knew that he did) on the thin razor-edge between life and death, between the supreme of earthly power, lord of France and arbiter of Europe, and the nothingness of the clod, he justified his fame.

He gave weaker natures no room for triumph.
The thought was no sooner entertained than it was gone.
'And so you are back at last, M.de Berault,' he said gently.

'I have been expecting to see you since nine this morning.' 'Your Eminence knew, then--' I muttered.
'That you returned to Paris by the Orleans gate last evening alone ?' he answered, fitting together the ends of his fingers, and looking at me over them with inscrutable eyes.

'Yes, I knew all that last night.