My
grandmother has been getting two rooms ready for them."
"What's that to me?" said Max, taking up his glass and swallowing the
contents at a gulp with a comic gesture.
Max was then thirty-four years old. A candle standing near him threw a
gleam upon his soldierly face, lit up his brow, and brought out
admirably his clear skin, his ardent eyes, his black and slightly
curling hair, which had the brilliancy of jet. The hair grew
vigorously upward from the forehead and temples, sharply defining
those five black tongues which our ancestors used to call the "five
points." Notwithstanding this abrupt contrast of black and white,
Max's face was very sweet, owing its charm to an outline like that
which Raphael gave to the faces of his Madonnas, and to a well-cut
mouth whose lips smiled graciously, giving an expression of
countenance which Max had made distinctively his own. The rich
coloring which blooms on a Berrichon cheek added still further to his
look of kindly good-humor. When he laughed heartily, he showed
thirty-two teeth worthy of the mouth of a pretty woman. In height
about five feet six inches, the young man was admirably
well-proportioned,--neither too stout nor yet too thin. His hands,
carefully kept, were white and rather handsome; but his feet recalled
the suburb and the foot-soldier of the Empire. Max would certainly
have made a good general of division; he had shoulders that were
worth a fortune to a marshal of France, and a breast broad enough to
wear all the orders of Europe.
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