“You do well, Marquis, and I will write at once to Louvier to ask him to give me his first disengaged day.”
The Marquis had no sooner quitted the house than M. Gandrin opened a door at the side of his office, and a large portly man strode into the room,—stride it was rather than step,—firm, self-assured, arrogant, masterful.
“Well, mon ami,” said this man, taking his stand at the hearth, as a king might take his stand in the hall of his vassal, “and what says our petit muscadin?”
“He is neither petit nor muscadin, Monsieur Louvier,” replied Gandrin, peevishly; “and he will task your powers to get him thoroughly into your net. But I have persuaded him to meet you here. What day can you dine with me? I had better ask no one else.”
“To-morrow I dine with my friend O——-, to meet the chiefs of the Opposition,” said M. Louvier, with a sort of careless rollicking pomposity. “Thursday with Pereire; Saturday I entertain at home. Say Friday. Your hour?”
“Seven.”
“Good! Show me those Rochebriant papers again; there is something I had forgotten to note. Never mind me. Go on with your work as if I were not here.”
Louvier took up the papers, seated himself in an armchair by the fireplace, stretched out his legs, and read at his ease, but with a very rapid eye, as a practised lawyer skims through the technical forms of a case to fasten upon the marrow of it.
“Ah! as I thought. The farms could not pay even the interest on my present mortgage; the forests come in for that. If a contractor for the yearly sale of the woods was bankrupt and did not pay, how could I get my interest? Answer me that, Gandrin.”
“Certainly you must run the risk of that chance.”