"Nor I either. 'Small,' however, is a word of relative import; the stakes might be small to you, to me large. Entre nous, cher ami, I am at the end of my purse, and I have only this consolation_-I am cured of play: not that I leave the complaint, the complaint leaves me; it can no more feed on me than a fever can feed on a skeleton."
"Are you serious?"
"As serious as a mourner who has just buried his all."
"His all? Tut, with such an estate as Rochebriant!"
For the first time in that talk Alain's countenance became overcast.
"And how long will Rochebriant be mine? You know that I hold it at the mercy of the mortgagee, whose interest has not been paid, and who could if, he so pleased, issue notice, take proceedings—that—"
"Peste!" interrupted de Finisterre; "Louvier take proceedings! Louvier, the best fellow in the world! But don't I see his handwriting on that envelope? No doubt an invitation to dinner."
Alain took up the letter thus singled forth from a miscellany of epistles, some in female handwritings, unsealed but ingeniously twisted into Gordian knots—some also in female handwritings, carefully sealed— others in ill-looking envelopes, addressed in bold, legible, clerk-like caligraphy. Taken altogether, these epistles had a character in common; they betokened the correspondence of a viveur, regarded from the female side as young, handsome, well-born—on the male side, as a viveur who had forgotten to pay his hosier and tailor.
Louvier wrote a small, not very intelligible, but very masculine hand, as most men who think cautiously and act promptly do write. The letter ran thus:
"Cher petit Marquis" (at that commencement Alain haughtily raised his head and bit his lips).