“Ah, mon cher,” said Lemercier, “you promised to call on me yesterday at two o’clock. I waited in for you half an hour; you never came.”
“No; I went first to the Bourse. The shares in that Company we spoke of have fallen; they will fall much lower: foolish to buy in yet; so the object of my calling on you was over. I took it for granted you would not wait if I failed my appointment. Do you go to the opera to-night?”
“I think not; nothing worth going for: besides, I have found an old friend, to whom I consecrate this evening. Let me introduce you to the Marquis de Rochebriant. Alain, M. Duplessis.”
“I had the honour to be known to Monsieur your father,” said Duplessis.
“Indeed,” returned Rochebriant. “He had not visited Paris for many years before he died.”
“It was in London I met him, at the house of the Russian Princess C____.”
The Marquis coloured high, inclined his head gravely, and made no reply. Here the waiter brought the oysters and the chablis, and Duplessis retired to his own table.
“That is the most extraordinary man,” said Frederic, as he squeezed the lemon over his oysters, “and very much to be admired.”
“How so? I see nothing at least to admire in his face,” said the Marquis, with the bluntness of a provincial.
“His face. Ah! you are a Legitimist,--party prejudice. He dresses his face after the Emperor; in itself a very clever face, surely.”
“Perhaps, but not an amiable one. He looks like a bird of prey.”
“All clever men are birds of prey. The eagles are the heroes, and the owls the sages. Duplessis is not an eagle nor an owl. I should rather call him a falcon, except that I would not attempt to hoodwink him.”
“Call him what you will,” said the Marquis, indifferently; “M. Duplessis can be nothing to me.”
“I am not so sure of that,” answered Frederic, somewhat nettled by the phlegm with which the Provincial regarded the pretensions of the Parisian. “Duplessis, I repeat it, is an extraordinary man. Though untitled, he descends from your old aristocracy; in fact, I believe, as his name shows, from the same stem as the Richelieus. His father was a great scholar, and I believe he has read much himself. Might have distinguished himself in literature or at the bar, but his parents died fearfully poor; and some distant relations in commerce took charge of him, and devoted his talents to the ‘Bourse.’ Seven years ago he lived in a single chamber, ‘au quatrieme,’ near the Luxembourg. He has now a hotel, not large but charming, in the Champs Elysees, worth at least six hundred thousand francs. Nor has he made his own fortune alone, but that of many others; some of birth as high as your own. He has the genius of riches, and knocks off a million as a poet does an ode, by the force of inspiration. He is hand-in-glove with the Ministers, and has been invited to Compiegne by the Emperor. You will find him very useful.”