"You must excuse me, mon cher" said he. "I have at least a dozen calls to make before dinner."
Dalrymple rose, readily enough, and took a roll of bank-notes from the cash-box.
"If you are going," he said, "I may as well hand over the price of that Tilbury. When will they send it home?"
"To-morrow, undoubtedly."
"And I am to pay fifteen hundred franks for it!"
"Just half its value!" observed M. de Simoncourt, with a shrug of his shoulders.
Dalrymple smiled, counted the notes, and handed them to his friend.
"Fifteen hundred may be half its cost," said he; "but I doubt if I am paying much less than its full value. Just see that these are right."
M. de Simoncourt ruffled the papers daintily over, and consigned them to his pocket-book. As he did so, I could not help observing the whiteness of his hands and the sparkle of a huge brilliant on his little finger. He was a pale, slender, olive-hued man, with very dark eyes, and glittering teeth, and a black moustache inclining superciliously upwards at each corner; somewhat too nonchalant, perhaps, in his manner, and somewhat too profuse in the article of jewellery; but a very elegant gentleman, nevertheless.
"Bon!" said he. "I am glad you have bought it. I would have taken it myself, had the thing happened a week or two earlier. Poor Duchesne! To think that he should have come to this, after all!"