"
I had already begun to think so, and reaching to the upper drawer on the
left-hand side of my desk, I produced from the box reserved for judges,
prominent members of the bar, borough presidents, commissioners of
departments and distinguished foreigners, a Havana of the variety known
in our purlieus as a "_good_ cigar," and tendered the same to him.
"Ah," he said, "many thanks, _merci, non_, I do not smoke the cigar.
M'sieu' perhaps has a cigarette? M'sieu' will pardon me if I say that
this is the first act of kindness which has been accorded to me since my
incarceration three weeks ago."
Somewhere I found a box of cigarettes, one of which he removed,
gracefully holding it between fingers which I noticed were singularly
white and delicate, and lighting it with the air of a diplomat at an
international conference.
"You can hardly appreciate," he ventured, "the humiliation to which I,
an officer and a gentleman of France, have been subjected."
I lighted the cigar which he had declined and with mingled feelings of
embarrassment, distrust and curiosity inquired if his name was Charles
Julius Francis de Nevers.
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