Since the death of Plon, André was now Prince d’Agrigente. Ten years older than Blaise, he looked as if he could have been Blaise’s father. The hair was white. The face was white; only the black eyes seemed alive in all that arctic bleakness. Like Plon, he had married money; unlike Plon he had maintained good relations with his wife, whom he saw several times a year. She lived at Aix-les-Bains in a family house. He stayed in Paris, with his mistress and her two children, neither his, he would say with a bitter pride, as he had been impotent for twenty years. Blaise gazed with more curiosity than fondness at the stepbrother whom he had hardly known. André stayed close to Paris and Blaise stayed close to the Tribune. “You’re thin,” said Blaise, as they entered the bar of the Crillon. For all practical purposes, the entire hotel had been taken over by the American delegation. “You’re not,” said André, looking about curiously. “I’ve never seen so many Americans all at once.”
