Other People's Money by Emile Gaboriau (ebook smartphone txt) 📕

known, the best market for the most correct and the most reliable news.  Therefore he might safely be believed.

Placing his back to the chimney, he had taken the lead in the conversation; and he was talking, talking, talking.  Being a “bull,” he took a favorable view of every thing.  He believed in the eternity of the second empire.  He sang the praise of the new cabinet:  he was ready to pour out his blood for Emile Ollivier.  True, some people complained that business was dull and slow; but those people, he thought, were merely “bears.”  Business had never been so brilliant.  At no time had prosperity been greater.  Capital was abundant.  The institutions of credit were flourishing.  Securities were rising.  Everybody’s pockets were full to bursting.  And the others listened in astonishment to this inexhaustible prattle, this “gab,” more filled with gold spangles than Dantzig cordial, with which the commercial travelers of the bourse catch their customers.

Suddenly: 

“But you must excuse me,” he said, rushing towards the other end of the parlor.

Mme. Favoral had just left the room to order tea to be brought in; and, the seat by Mlle. Gilberte being vacant, M. Costeclar occupied it promptly.

“He understands his business,” growled M. Desormeaux.

“Surely,” said M. Desclavettes, “if I had some funds to dispose of just now.”

“I would be most happy to have him for my son-in-law,” declared M. Favoral.

He was doing his best.  Somewhat intimidated by Mlle. Gilberte’s first look, he had now fully recovered his wits.

He commenced by sketching his own portrait.

He had just turned thirty, and had experienced the strong and the weak side of life.  He had had “successes,” but had tired of them.  Having gauged the emptiness of what is called pleasure, he only wished now to find a partner for life, whose graces and virtues would secure his domestic happiness.

He could not help noticing the absent look of the young girl; but he had, thought he, other means of compelling her attention.  And he went on, saying that he felt himself cast of the metal of which model husbands are made.  His plans were all made in advance.  His wife would be free to do as she pleased.  She would have her own carriage and horses, her box at the Italiens and at the Opera, and an open account at Worth’s and Van Klopen’s.  As to diamonds, he would take care of that.  He meant that his wife’s display of wealth should be noticed; and even spoken of in the newspapers.

Was this the terms of a bargain that he was offering?

If so, it was so coarsely, that Mlle. Gilberte, ignorant of life as she was, wondered in what world it might be that he had met with so many “successes.”  And, somewhat indignantly: 

“Unfortunately,” she said, “the bourse is perfidious; and the man who drives his own carriage to-day, to-morrow may have no shoes to wear.”

M. Costeclar nodded with a smile.

“Exactly so,” said he.  “A marriage protects one against such reverses.

“Every man in active business, when he marries, settles upon his wife reasonable fortune.  I expect to settle six hundred thousand francs upon mine.”

“So that, if you were to meet with an—accident?”

“We should enjoy our thirty thousand a year under the very nose of the creditors.”

Blushing with shame, Mlle. Gilberte rose.

“But then,” said she, “it isn’t a wife that you are looking for:  it is an accomplice.”

He was spared the embarrassment of an answer, by the servant, who came in, bringing in tea.  He accepted a cup; and after two or three anecdotes, judging that he had done enough for a first visit, he withdrew, and a moment later they heard his carriage driving off at full gallop.

XVI

It was not without mature thought that M. Costeclar had determined to withdraw, despite M. Favoral’s pressing overtures.  However infatuated he might be with his own merits, he had been compelled to surrender to evidence, and to acknowledge that he had not exactly succeeded with Mlle. Gilberte.  But he also knew that he had the head of the house on his side; and he flattered himself that he had produced an excellent impression upon the guests of the house.

“Therefore,” had he said to himself, “if I leave first, they will sing my praise, lecture the young person, and make her listen to reason.”

He was not far from being right.  Mme. Desclavettes had been completely subjugated by the grand manners of this pretender; and M. Desclavettes did not hesitate to affirm that he had rarely met any one who pleased him more.

The others, M. Chapelain and old Desormeaux, did not, doubtless, share this optimism; but M. Costeclar’s annual half-million obscured singularly their clear-sightedness.

They thought perhaps, they had discovered in him some alarming features; but they had full and entire confidence in their friend Favoral’s prudent sagacity.

The particular and methodic cashier of the Mutual Credit was not apt to be enthusiastic; and, if he opened the doors of his house to a young man, if he was so anxious to have him for his son-in-law, he must evidently have taken ample information.

Finally there are certain family matters from which sensible people keep away as they would from the plague; and, on the question of marriage especially, he is a bold man who would take side for or against.

Thus Mme. Desclavettes was the only one to raise her voice.  Taking Mlle. Gilberte’s hands within hers: 

“Let me scold you, my dear,” said she, “for having received thus a poor young man who was only trying to please you.”

Excepting her mother, too weak to take her defence, and her brother, who was debarred from interfering, the young girl understood readily, that, in that parlor, every one, overtly or tacitly, was against her.  The idea came to her mind to repeat there boldly what she had already told her father that she was resolved not to marry, and that she would not marry, not being one of those weak girls, without energy, whom they dress in white, and drag to church against their will.

Such a bold declaration would be in keeping with her character.  But she feared a terrible, and perhaps degrading scene.  The most intimate friends of the family were ignorant of its most painful sores.  In presence of his friends, M. Favoral dissembled, speaking in a mild voice, and assuming a kindly smile.  Should she suddenly reveal the truth?

“It is childish of you to run the risk of discouraging a clever fellow who makes half a million a year,” continued the wife of the old bronze-merchant, to whom such conduct seemed an abominable crime of lese-money.  Mlle. Gilberte had withdrawn her hands.