The
ribbon of the Legion of honor was in his buttonhole. He wore a
well-fitting pair of kid gloves of the Florentine bronze color, and
carried his cane and hat in the left hand with a gesture and air that
was worthy of the Grand Monarch, and enabled him to show, as the
sacred precincts required, his bare head with the light falling on his
carefully arranged hair. He stationed himself before the service began
in the church porch, from whence he could examine the church, and the
Christians--more particularly the female Christians--who dipped their
fingers in the holy water.
An inward voice cried to Modeste as she entered, "It is he!" That
surtout, and indeed the whole bearing of the young man were
essentially Parisian; the ribbon, the gloves, the cane, the very
perfume of his hair were not of Havre. So when La Briere turned about
to examine the tall and imposing Madame Latournelle, the notary, and
the bundled-up (expression sacred to women) figure of Modeste, the
poor child, though she had carefully tutored herself for the event,
received a violent blow on her heart when her eyes rested on this
poetic figure, illuminated by the full light of day as it streamed
through the open door.
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