A Parisian Romance — page 55: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

46 A PARISIAN ROMANCE. Laubanere started, and turning, bowed obse- —quiously. : “Good-evening, baron,” he replied, in response to the salutation of the new-comer. We have already caught a glimpse of Baron Chevrial at the church door in Sainte Roche, but in the last two years, he has altered somewhat and not for the better. His face is thinner, and the cheeks, in spite of their rather too brilliant color- ing. look sunken. The little eyes, beneath the care- fully penciled brows, are dull and fishy, and below “them are puffed ridges which no art can conceal. His hair, however, is quite as thick and black as ever. It has long been a matter of hot discussion in club and boudoir whether the baron’s chevelure is due to nature ora very skillful wig-maker, but the question has never yet been satisfactorily solved. The baron advanced into the room, dangling in one hand a monocle, attached by a thin gold chain to the lapel of his vest, and stroking with the other his slender mustache which was waxed into two stiff points and turned straight up from the corners of his mouth—a mouth, by the way, which would not have met with favor from physiognomists, the upper lip being thin and bloodless, and the lower heavy, protruding, and of a deep purplish hue. Every detail of his dress was perfection. The cut of his evening coat, with its single gardenia in the button-hole, was a model, and the set of the white Eomicbooks.co =|