"In Faubourg St. Honoré. The garden joins that of the Élysée-Bourbon."
"Has this young girl lived with her uncle long?"
Dutertre, quite surprised at this persistent inquiry concerning Antonine, answered:
"About three months ago M. Hubert went to Nice for Antonine, where she lived after the death of her parents."
"And is Madame Dutertre very intimate with this young person?"
"They were together at boarding-school, where Sophie was a sort of mother to her, and ever since they have been upon the most affectionate terms."
"Ah!" said Pascal, again relapsing into deep thought.
This man possessed a great and rare faculty which had contributed to the accumulation of his immense fortune,--he could with perfect ease detach himself from any line of thought, and enter upon a totally different set of ideas. Thus, after the interview of Frantz and Antonine which he had surprised, and which had excited him so profoundly, he was able to talk with the archduke upon business affairs, and to torture him with deliberate malice.
In the same way, after this meeting with Antonine at the house of Dutertre, he postponed, so to speak, his violent resentment and his plans regarding the young girl, and said, with perfect good-nature, to Sophie's husband:
"While we wait for the return of your wife, I have a little favour to ask of you."
"At last!" exclaimed Dutertre, rubbing his hands with evident satisfaction; "better late than never."
"He committed, while in my employ, not an act of dishonesty, for I should not, at any price, have saved him from the punishment he merited; but he was guilty of an indelicacy under circumstances which proved to me that the man was a wretch, and I dismissed him."
"Marcelange told me, in fact, that you sent him away."
"You are acquainted with him?" replied Dutertre, in surprise, as he recalled his father's words.
"Some days ago he came to see me. He wished to get a position in the Durand house."
"But, as I have told you, my dear M. Pascal, I sent him away as soon as his conduct was known to me."
"I understand perfectly. Only, as he is without a position, he must have, in order to enter the Durand house, a letter of recommendation from you, as the Durands are not willing to accept the poor fellow otherwise; now this letter, my dear Dutertre, I come honestly to ask of you."