Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/87

 expected; and so the crowd moved in front of the Dueler.

“There is Désiré!” was the universal cry.

Désiré, at once the tyrant and boon companion of Nemours, always set the town in a flutter by his visits. His presence roused up the young people, by whom he was liked, and with whom he was open-handed; but his amusements were so much dreaded, that more than one family rejoiced to see him go off to study and read for the bar at Paris. Désiré Minoret—a thin young man, slender and fair like his mother, from whom he got his blue eyes and pale complexion—smiled out of the window at the crowd, and jumped out lightly to kiss his mother. A slight sketch of this boy will prove how pleased Zélie was at seeing him.

The student wore thin boots, white trousers of some English material with patent leather straps, a handsome fashionable tie even more beautifully tied, a stylish fancy waistcoat, and in this waistcoat pocket, a flat watch with a hanging chain, and lastly, a short frockcoat of blue cloth and a gray hat; but the gold buttons of the waistcoat and the ring worn outside the violet-colored kid gloves betrayed the parvenu. He carried a cane with a chased gold knob.

“You will lose your watch,” said his mother, kissing him.

“It is done on purpose,” he replied, submitting to his father’s embrace.

“Well, cousin, you will soon be a barrister?” said Massin.