Monsieur Chauvelin here had--if I may be allowed to say so--so vitiated a taste in snuff that he prefers it with an admixture of pepper...

Is that not so, Monsieur...

er...
Chaubertin ?" "Chauvelin, Sir Percy," remarked the ex-ambassador drily.
He was determined not to lose his temper and looked urbane and pleasant, whilst his impudent enemy was enjoying a joke at his expense.

Marguerite the while had not taken her eyes off the keen, shrewd face.

Whilst the three men talked, she seemed suddenly to have lost her sense of the reality of things.