"Gentlemen," he said, "I think I am a little late, but that devil of a Thuillier is the most intolerable of human beings about a pamphlet I am concocting for him. I was unlucky enough to agree to correct the proofs with him, and over every paragraph there's a fight. 'What I can't understand,' he says, 'the public can't, either. I'm not a man of letters, but I'm a practical man'; and that's the way we battle it, page after page. I thought the sitting this afternoon would never end."

"How unreasonable you are, my dear fellow," said Dutocq; "when a man wants to succeed he must have the courage to make sacrifices. Once married, you can lift your head."

"Ah, yes!" said la Peyrade with a sigh, "I'll lift it; for since the day you made me eat this bread of anguish I've become terribly sick of it."

"Cerizet," said Dutocq, "has a plan that will feed you more succulently."

Nothing more was said at the moment, for justice had to be done to the excellent fare ordered by Cerizet in honor of his coming lease. As usually happens at dinners where affairs are likely to be discussed, each man, with his mind full of them, took pains not to approach those topics, fearing to compromise his advantages by seeming eager; the conversation, therefore, continued for a long time on general subjects, and it was not until the dessert was served that Cerizet brought himself to ask la Peyrade what had been settled about the terms of his lease.

"Nothing, my friend," replied Theodose.

"What! nothing? I certainly allowed you time enough to decide the matter."

"Well, as to that, something is decided. There will not be any princ.i.p.al tenant at all; Mademoiselle Brigitte is going to let the house herself."

"That's a singular thing," said Cerizet, stiffly. "After your agreement with me, I certainly did not expect such a result as this."

"How can I help it, my dear fellow? I agreed with you, barring amendments on the other side; I wasn't able to give another turn to the affair. In her natural character as a managing woman and a sample of perpetual motion, Brigitte has reflected that she might as well manage that house herself and put into her own pocket the profits you proposed to make. I said all I could about the cares and annoyances which she would certainly saddle upon herself. 'Oh! nonsense!' she said; 'they'll stir my blood and do my health good!'"

"It is pitiable!" said Cerizet. "That poor old maid will never know which end to take hold of; she doesn't imagine what it is to have an empty house, and which must be filled with tenants from garret to cellar."

"I plied her with all those arguments," replied la Peyrade; "but I couldn't move her resolution. Don't you see, my dear democrats, you stirred up the revolution of '89; you thought to make a fine speculation in dethroning the n.o.ble by the bourgeois, and the end of it is you are shoved out yourselves. This looks like paradox; but you've found out now that the peasant and clodhopper isn't malleable; he can't be forced down and kept under like the n.o.ble. The aristocracy, on behalf of its dignity, would not condescend to common cares, and was therefore dependent on a crowd of plebeian servitors to whom it had to trust for three-fourths of the actions of its own life. That was the reign of stewards and bailiffs, wily fellows, into whose hands the interests of the great families pa.s.sed, and who fed and grew fat on the parings of the great fortunes they managed. But now-a-days, utilitarian theories, as they call them, have come to the fore,--'We are never so well served as by ourselves,' 'There's no shame in attending to one's own business,'

and many other bourgeois maxims which have suppressed the role of intermediaries. Why shouldn't Mademoiselle Brigitte Thuillier manage her own house when dukes and peers go in person to the Bourse, where such men sign their own leases and read the deeds before they sign them, and go themselves to the notary, whom, in former days, they considered a servant."

During this time Cerizet had time to recover from the blow he had just received squarely in the face, and to think of the transition he had to make from one set of interests to the other, of which he was now the agent.

"What you are declaiming there is all very clever," he said, carelessly, "but the thing that proves to me our defeat is the fact that you are not on the terms with Mademoiselle Thuillier you would have us believe you are. She is slipping through your fingers; and I don't think that marriage is anything like as certain as Dutocq and I have been fancying it was."

"Well, no doubt," said la Peyrade, "there are still some touches to be given to our sketch, but I believe it is well under way."

"And I think, on the contrary, that you have lost ground; and the reason is simple: you have done those people an immense service; and that's a thing never forgiven."

"Well, we shall see," said la Peyrade. "I have more than one hold upon them."

"No, you are mistaken. You thought you did a brilliant thing in putting them on a pinnacle, but the fact is you emanc.i.p.ated them; they'll keep you now at heel. The human heart, particularly the bourgeois heart, is made that way. If I were in your place I shouldn't feel so sure of being on solid ground, and if something else turned up that offered me a good chance--"

"What! just because I couldn't get you the lease of that house do you want to knock everything to pieces?"

"No," said Cerizet, "I am not looking at the matter in the light of my own interests; I don't doubt that as a trustworthy friend you have done every imaginable thing to promote them; but I think the manner in which you have been shoved aside a very disturbing symptom. It even decides me to tell you something I did not intend to speak of; because, in my opinion, when persons start a course they ought to keep on steadily, looking neither forward nor back, and not allowing themselves to be diverted to other aspirations."

"Ah ca!" cried la Peyrade, "what does all this verbiage mean? Have you anything to propose to me? What's the price of it?"

"My dear Theodose," said Cerizet, paying no attention to the impertinence, "you yourself can judge of the value of discovering a young girl, well brought-up, adorned with beauty and talents and a 'dot'

equal to that of Celeste, which she has in her own right, _plus_ fifty thousand francs' worth of diamonds (as Mademoiselle Georges says on her posters in the provinces), and, moreover,--a fact which ought to strike the mind of an ambitious man,--a strong political influence, which she can use for a husband."

"And this treasure you hold in your hand?" said la Peyrade, in a tone of incredulity.

"Better still, I am authorized to offer it to you; in fact, I might say that I am charged to do so."

"My friend, you are poking fun at me; unless, indeed, this phoenix has some hideous or prohibitory defect."

"Well, I'll admit," said Cerizet, "that there is a slight objection, not on the score of family, for, to tell the truth, the young woman has none--"

"Ah!" said la Peyrade, "a natural child--Well, what next?"

"Next, she is not so very young,--something like twenty-nine or so; but there's nothing easier than to turn an elderly girl into a young widow if you have imagination."

"Is that all the venom in it?"

"Yes, all that is irreparable."

"What do you mean by that? Is it a case of rhinoplasty?"

Addressed to Cerizet the word had an aggressive air, which, in fact, was noticeable since the beginning of the dinner in the whole manner and conversation of the barrister. But it did not suit the purpose of the negotiator to resent it.

"No," he replied, "our nose is as well made as our foot and our waist; but we may, perhaps, have a slight touch of hysteria."

"Oh! very good," said la Peyrade; "and as from hysteria to insanity there is but a step--"

"Well, yes," interrupted Cerizet, hastily, "sorrows have affected our brain slightly; but the doctors are unanimous in their diagnosis; they all say that after the birth of the first child not a trace will remain of this little trouble."

"I am willing to admit that doctors are infallible," replied la Peyrade; "but, in spite of your discouragement, you must allow me, my friend, to persist in my suit to Mademoiselle Colleville. Perhaps it is ridiculous to confess it, but the truth is I am gradually falling in love with that little girl. It isn't that her beauty is resplendent, or that the glitter of her 'dot' has dazzled me, but I find in that child a great fund of sound sense joined to simplicity; and, what to mind is of greater consequence, her sincere and solid piety attracts me; I think a husband ought to be very happy with her."

"Yes," said Cerizet, who, having been on the stage, may very well have known his Moliere, "this marriage will crown your wishes with all good; it will be filled with sweetness and with pleasures."

The allusion to Tartuffe was keenly felt by la Peyrade, who took it up and said, hotly:--

"The contact with innocence will disinfect me of the vile atmosphere in which I have lived too long."

"And you will pay your notes of hand," added Cerizet, "which I advise you to do with the least possible delay; for Dutocq here was saying to me just now that he would like to see the color of your money."

"I? not at all," interposed Dutocq. "I think, on the contrary, that our friend has a right to the delay."

"Well," said la Peyrade, "I agree with Cerizet. I hold that the less a debt is due, and therefore the more insecure and open to contention it is, the sooner one ought to free one's self by paying it."

"But, my dear la Peyrade," said Dutocq, "why take this bitter tone?"

Pulling from his pocket a portfolio, la Peyrade said:--

"Have you those notes with you, Dutocq?"

"Faith! no, my dear fellow," replied Dutocq, "I don't carry them about with me; besides, they are in Cerizet's hands."

"Well," said the barrister, rising, "whenever you come to my house I'll pay you on the nail, as Cerizet can tell you."

"What! are you going to leave us without your coffee?" said Cerizet, amazed to the last degree.

"Yes; I have an arbitration case at eight o'clock. Besides, we have said all we had to say. You haven't your lease, but you've got your twenty five thousand francs in full, and those of Dutocq are ready for him whenever he chooses to come to my office. I see nothing now to prevent me from going where my private business calls me, and I therefore very cordially bid you good-bye."