a key grate in the lock of the outer door, and then some quick steps along the ante-room. “At last—here he is!” he muttered, with a sigh of relief.
He expected to see M. Fortunat enter the room at once, but he was disappointed. The agent had no desire to show himself in the garb which he had assumed for his excursion with Chupin; and so he had hastened to his room to don his wonted habiliments. He also desired a few moments for deliberation.
If—as was most probably the case—M. de Valorsay were ignorant of the Count de Chalusse’s critical condition, was it advisable to tell him of it? M. Fortunat thought not, judging with reason that this would lead to a discussion and very possibly to a rupture, and he wished to avoid anything of the kind until he was quite certain of the count’s death.
Meanwhile the marquis was thinking—he was a trifle late about it—that he had done wrong to wait in that drawing-room for three mortal hours. Was such conduct worthy of him? Had he shown himself proper respect? Would not M. Fortunat construe this as an acknowledgment of the importance of his services and his client’s urgent need? Would he not become more exacting, more exorbitant in his demands? If the marquis could have made his escape unheard, he would, no doubt, have done so; but this was out of the question. So he resorted to a stratagem which seemed to him likely to save his compromised dignity. He stretched himself out in his arm-chair, closed his eyes, and pretended to doze. Then, when M. Fortunat at last entered the drawing-room he sprang up as if he were suddenly aroused from slumber, rubbed his eyes, and exclaimed: “Eh! what’s that? Upon my word I must have been asleep!”
But M. Fortunat was not deceived. He noticed, on the floor, a torn and crumpled newspaper, which betrayed the impatience and anger his client had experienced during his long waiting. “Well,” resumed the marquis, “what time is it? Half-past twelve? This is a pretty time to keep an appointment fixed for ten o’clock. This is presuming on my good-nature, M. Fortunat! Do you know that my carriage has been waiting below ever since half-past nine, and that my horses have, perhaps, taken cold? A pair of horses worth six hundred louis!”
M. Fortunat listened to these reproaches with the deepest humility. “You must excuse me, Monsieur le Marquis,” said he. “If I remained out so much later than usual, it was only because your business interests detained me.”
“Zounds! that is about the same as if it had been your own business that detained you!” And well pleased with this joke, he added, “Ah well! How are affairs progressing?”
“On my side as well as could be desired.”
The marquis had resumed his seat in the chimney-corner, and was poking the fire with a haughty, but poorly assumed air of indifference. “I am listening,” he said carelessly.
“In that case, Monsieur le Marquis, I will state the facts in a few words, without going into particulars. Thanks to an expedient devised by me, we shall obtain for twenty hours a release from all the mortgages that now encumber your estates. On that very day we will request a certificate from the recorder. This certificate will declare that your estates are free from all encumbrances; you will show this statement to M. de Chalusse, and all his doubts—that is, if he has any—will vanish. The plan was very simple; the only difficulty was about raising the money, but I have succeeded in doing so. All your creditors but two lent themselves very readily to the arrangement. I have now won the consent of the two who at first refused, but we shall have to pay dearly for it. It will cost you about twenty-six thousand francs.”
M. de Valorsay was so delighted that he could not refrain from clapping his hands. “Then the affair is virtually concluded,” he exclaimed. “In less than a month Mademoiselle Marguerite will be the Marquise de Valorsay, and I shall have a hundred thousand francs a year again.” Then, noting how gravely M. Fortunat shook his head: “Ah! so you doubt it!” he cried. “Very well; now it is your turn to listen. Yesterday I had a long conference with the Count de Chalusse, and everything has been settled. We exchanged our word of honor, Master Twenty-per-cent. The count does things in a princely fashion; he gives Mademoiselle Marguerite two millions.”
“Two millions!” the other repeated like an echo.
“Yes, my dear miser, neither more nor less. Only for private reasons, which he did not explain, the count stipulates that only two hundred thousand francs shall appear in the marriage contract. The remaining eighteen hundred thousand francs, he gives to me unreservedly and unconditionally. Upon my word, I think this very charming. How does it strike you?”
M. Fortunat made no reply. M. de Valorsay’s gayety, instead of cheering, saddened him. “Ah! my fine fellow,” he thought, “you would sing a different song if you knew that by this time M. de Chalusse is probably dead, and that most likely Mademoiselle Marguerite has only her beautiful eyes left her, and will dim them in weeping for her vanished millions.”
But this brilliant scion of the aristocracy had no suspicion of the real state of affairs, for he continued: “You will say, perhaps, it is strange, that I, Ange-Marie Robert Dalbou, Marquis de Valorsay, should marry a girl whose father and mother no one knows, and whose only name is Marguerite. In this respect it is true that the match is not exactly a brilliant one. Still, as it will appear that she merely has a fortune of two hundred thousand francs, no one will accuse me of marrying for money on the strength of my name. On the contrary, it will seem to be a love-match, and people will suppose that I have grown young again.” He paused, incensed by M. Fortunat’s lack of enthusiasm. “Judging from your long face, Master Twenty-per-cent, one would fancy you doubted my success,” he said.
“It is always best to doubt,” replied his adviser, philosophically.
The marquis shrugged his shoulders. “Even when one has triumphed over all obstacles?” he asked sneeringly.
“Yes.”
“Then, tell me, if you please, what prevents this marriage from being a foregone conclusion?”
“Mademoiselle Marguerite’s consent, Monsieur le Marquis.”
It was as if a glass of ice-water had been thrown in M. de Valorsay’s face. He started, turned as pale as death, and then exclaimed: “I shall have that; I am sure of it.”
You could not say that M. Fortunat was angry. Such a man, as cold and as smooth as a hundred franc piece, has no useless passions. But he was intensely irritated to hear his client foolishly chanting the paeons of victory, while he was compelled to conceal his grief at the loss of his forty thousand francs, deep in the recesses of his heart. So, far from being touched by the marquis’s evident alarm, it pleased him to be able to turn the dagger in the wound he had just inflicted. “You must excuse my incredulity,” said he. “It comes entirely from something you, yourself, told me about a week ago.”
“What did I tell you?”
“That you suspected Mademoiselle Marguerite of a—how shall I express it?—of a secret preference for some other person.”
The gloomiest despondency had now followed the marquis’s enthusiasm and exultation. He was evidently in torture. “I more than suspected it,” said he.
“Ah!”
“I was certain of it, thanks to the count’s house-keeper, Madame Leon, a miserable old woman whom I have hired to look after my interests. She has been watching Mademoiselle Marguerite, and saw a letter written by her——”
“Oh!”
“Certainly nothing has passed that Mademoiselle Marguerite has any cause to blush for. The letter, which is now in my possession,
