In the exit the situation assumes a special gravity; for then is the
moment in which the enemy has crossed all the intrenchments within
which he was subject to our examination and has escaped into the
street! At this point a man of understanding when he sees a visitor
passing under the _porte-cochere_ should be able to divine the import
of the whole visit. The indications are indeed fewer in number, but
how distinct is their character! The denouement has arrived and the
man instantly betrays the importance of it by the frankest expression
of happiness, pain or joy.
These revelations are therefore easy to apprehend; they appear in the
glance cast either at the building or at the windows of the apartment;
in a slow or loitering gait, in the rubbing of hands, on the part of a
fool, in the bounding gait of a coxcomb, or the involuntary arrest of
his footsteps, which marks the man who is deeply moved; in a word, you
see upon the stoop certain questions as clearly proposed to you as if
a provincial academy had offered a hundred crowns for an essay; but in
the exit you behold the solution of these questions clearly and
precisely given to you. Our task would be far above the power of human
intelligence if it consisted in enumerating the different ways by
which men betray their feelings, the discernment of such things is
purely a matter of tact and sentiment.
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