There was a pause; the financier was evidently confused and embarrassed, and not less evidently the visit of the “dear old friend” was unwelcome.
“Vicomte,” he said at last, “this is indeed a surprise; I thought you had long since quitted Paris for good.”
“‘L’homme propose,’ etc. I have returned, and mean to enjoy the rest of my days in the metropolis of the Graces and the Pleasures. What though we are not so young as we were, Louvier,—we have more vigour in us than the new generation; and though it may no longer befit us to renew the gay carousals of old, life has still excitements as vivid for the social temperament and ambitious mind. Yes, the roi des viveurs returns to Paris for a more solid throne than he filled before.”
“Are you serious?”
“As serious as the French gayety will permit one to be.”
“Alas, Monsieur le Vicomte! can you flatter yourself that you will regain the society you have quitted, and the name you have—”
Louvier stopped short; something in the Vicomte’s eye daunted him.
“The name I have laid aside for convenience of travel. Princes travel incognito, and so may a simple gentilhomme. ‘Regain my place in society,’ say you? Yes; it is not that which troubles me.”
“What does?”
“The consideration whether on a very modest income I can be sufficiently esteemed for myself to render that society more pleasant than ever. Ah, mon cher! why recoil? why so frightened? Do you think I am going to ask you for money? Have I ever done so since we parted; and did I ever do so before without repaying you? Bah! you roturiers are worse than the Bourbons. You never learn or unlearn. ‘Fors non mutat genus.’”