'He is like a Sultan,' thought the old man angrily, 'a Sultan who loads the women of his zenana with ropes of pearls and emeralds as big as pigeon's eggs, that they may not perceive that he only visits them twice a year!'
By the law of the attraction of contrasts, there had arisen a mutual attachment between her and Baron Fritz: the unscrupulous old man, for whom as for Turcaret the whole world was composed of shareholders, felt more reverence and tenderness for Yseulte than he ever felt in his life for anyone; and she, who only saw his devotion to Othmar, his admirable manners, his shrewd wit, and his paternal kindness to herself, grew fond of, and grateful to, him, and was wholly ignorant of that mercilessness and selfishness which would have immolated all mankind to the service of his personal ambitions, and to which all morality or humanity appeared as absurd as they did to Fouquet or to Talleyrand.
Friederich Othmar incessantly strove to inspire her with his own passion for the House he adored, and though he failed because she was too thoroughly patrician in all her instincts to easily welcome such impressions, and was more apt to share her husband's disdain for all such ambitions, he did succeed in persuading her that the future content of Othmar himself would depend on the measure of the interest which he would take in those great fortunes of which he held the key.
'Understand this, my child,' he would say, 'a man in old age never forgives himself for the occasions which he has let slip in youth; and every man who in youth is _désœuvré_, pays for it heavily when age has come. Otho is a clever man, but he has the sickness of his century; he is indifferent to everything' ('even to you!' he thought impatiently). 'We call it the malady of the time; I do not know that we are right. It existed in Petronius Arbiter's, but it had no existence in our immediate forefathers'. However, you do not care for abstract discussions; you care for Otho. Well, let us confine ourselves to Otho. Nowadays, he is still a young man; he thinks he can afford to despise all things because he has strength, and health, and every form of enjoyment accessible to him--and he is certainly rich enough to play at cynicism all day if it amuse him most.'