"Pray be seated, Monsieur," he said, resuming his own easy-chair.
The visitor obeyed the invitation with a very graceful bend of his head, drew his chair near to the financier's, stretched his limbs with the ease of a man making himself at home, and fixing his calm bright eyes quietly on Louvier, said, with a bland smile,—
"My dear old friend, do you not remember me? You are less altered than I am."
Louvier stared hard and long; his lip fell, his cheek paled, and at last he faltered out, "Ciel! is it possible! Victor, the Vicomte de Mauleon?"
"At your service, my dear Louvier."
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."