ten years younger than Frederic, held the same position in the office of his elder brother that a head clerk holds in that of a notary or lawyer. Frederic trained him, as he had himself been trained by his father, in the variety of knowledge necessary to a true banker, who is to money what a writer is to ideas—they must both know all of that with which they have to deal.
When Godefroid reached the banking house and gave his name, he saw at once the estimation in which his father had been held; for he was ushered through the offices without delay to the private counting-room of the Mongenods. This counting-room was closed with a glass door, so that Godefroid, without any desire to listen, overheard as he approached it what was being said there.
“Madame, your account is balanced to sixteen hundred thousand francs,” said the younger Mongenod. “I do not know what my brother’s intentions are; he alone can say whether an advance of a hundred thousand francs can be made. You must have been imprudent. Sixteen hundred thousand francs should not be entrusted to any business.”
“Do not speak so loud, Louis!” said a woman’s voice. “Your brother has often told you to speak in a low voice. There may be some one in the next room.”
At this moment Frederic Mongenod himself opened the door of communication between his private house and the counting-room. He saw Godefroid and crossed the room, bowing respectfully to the lady who was conversing with his brother.
“To whom have I the honor of speaking?” he said to Godefroid.
As soon as Godefroid gave his name, Frederic begged him to be seated; and as the banker opened the lid of his desk, Louis Mongenod and the lady, who was no other than Madame de la Chanterie, rose and went up to him. All three then moved into the embrasure of a window and talked in a low voice with Madame Mongenod, the mother, who was sitting there, and to whom all the affairs of the bank were confided. For over thirty years this woman had given, to her husband first and then to her sons, such proofs of business sagacity that she had long been a managing partner in the firm and signed for it.
Godefroid, as he looked about him, noticed on a shelf certain boxes ticketed with the words “De la Chanterie,” and numbered 1 to 7. When the conference was ended by the banker saying to his brother, “Very good; go down to the cashier,” Madame de la Chanterie turned round, saw Godefroid, checked a gesture of surprise, and asked a few questions of the banker in a low voice, to which he replied in a few words spoken equally in a whisper.
Madame de la Chanterie now wore gray silk stockings and small prunella shoes; her gown was the same as before, but she was wrapped in a Venetian “mantua,”—a sort of cloak which was just then returning into fashion. On her head was a drawn bonnet of green silk, lined with white silk, of a style called a la bonne femme. Her face was framed by a cloud of lace. She held herself very erect, in an attitude which bespoke, if not noble birth, certainly the habits of an aristocratic life. Without the extreme affability of her manner, she might have seemed haughty; she was certainly imposing.
“It is the will of Providence rather than mere chance that has brought us here together, monsieur,” she said to Godefroid; “for I had almost decided to refuse a lodger whose ways of life seemed to me quite antipathetic to those of my household; but Monsieur Mongenod has just given me some information about your family which—”
“Ah, madame—monsieur!” said Godefroid, addressing both Madame de la Chanterie and the banker, “I have no longer a family; and I have come here now to ask some financial advice of my father’s business advisers as to the best method of adapting my means to a new way of life.”
Godefroid then succinctly, and in as few words as possible, related his history, and expressed his desire to change his existence.
“Formerly,” he said, “a man in my position would have made himself a monk; but there are no longer any religious orders.”
“Go and live with madame, if she is willing to take you,” said Frederic Mongenod, after exchanging a glance with Madame de la Chanterie, “and do not sell out your property; leave it in my hands. Give me the exact amount of your debts; I will agree with your creditors for payment at certain dates, and you can have for yourself about a hundred and fifty francs a month. It will thus take two years to clear you. During those two years, if you take those quiet lodgings, you will have time to think of a career, especially among the persons with whom you will live, who are all good counsellors.”
Here Louis Mongenod returned, bringing in his hand a hundred notes of a thousand francs each, which he gave to Madame de la Chanterie. Godefroid offered his arm to his future hostess, and took her down to the hackney-coach which was waiting for her.
“I hope I shall see you soon, monsieur,” she said in a cordial tone of voice.
“At what hour shall you be at home, madame?” he asked.
“At two o’clock.”
“I shall have time to sell my furniture,” he said, as he bowed to her.
During the short time that Madame de la Chanterie’s arm rested upon his as they walked to the carriage, Godefroid could not escape the glamour of the words: “Your account is for sixteen hundred thousand francs!”—words said by Louis Mongenod to the woman whose life was spent in the depths of the cloisters of Notre-Dame. The thought, “She must be rich!” entirely changed his way of looking at the matter. “How old is she?” he began to ask himself; and a vision of a romance in the rue Chanoinesse came to him. “She certainly has an air of nobility! Can she be concerned in some bank?” thought he.
In our day nine hundred and ninety-nine young men out of a thousand in Godefroid’s position would have had the thought of marrying that woman.
A furniture dealer, who also had apartments to let, paid about three thousand francs for the articles Godefroid was willing to sell, and agreed to let him keep them during the few days that were needed to prepare the shabby apartment in the rue Chanoinesse for this lodger with a sick mind. Godefroid went there at once, and obtained from Madame de la Chanterie the address of a painter who, for a moderate sum, agreed to whiten the ceilings, clean the windows, paint the woodwork, and stain the floors, within a week. Godefroid took the measure of the rooms, intending to put the same carpet in all of them—a green carpet of the cheapest kind. He wished for the plainest uniformity in this retreat, and Madame de la Chanterie approved of the idea. She calculated, with Manon’s assistance, the number of yards of white calico required for the window curtains, and also for those of the modest iron bed; and she undertook to buy and have them made for a price so moderate as to surprise Godefroid. Having brought with him a certain amount of furniture, the whole cost of fitting up the rooms proved to be not over six hundred francs.
“We lead here,” said Madame de la Chanterie, “a Christian life, which does not, as you know, accord with many superfluities; I think you have too many as it is.”
In giving this hint to her future lodger, she looked at a diamond which gleamed in the ring through which Godefroid’s blue cravat was slipped.
“I only speak of this,” she added, “because of the intention you expressed to abandon the frivolous life you complained of to Monsieur Mongenod.”
Godefroid looked at Madame de la Chanterie as he listened to the harmonies of her limpid voice; he examined that face so purely white, resembling those of the cold, grave women of Holland whom the Flemish painters have so wonderfully reproduced with their smooth skins, in which a wrinkle is impossible.
“White and plump!” he said to himself, as he walked away; “but her hair is white, too.”
