“And I think that we ought to begin operations this very day. The main thing is to circumvent your father, the terrible man with whom your mother has threatened you.”
“Ah! but how?”
“I shall dress at once and go to the Hotel de Chalusse, in order to ascertain what has occurred there. You on your side must hasten to Madame d’Argeles and request her politely, but firmly, to furnish you with the necessary proofs to assert your rights. If she consents, well and good! If she refuses, we will consult some lawyer as to the next step. In any case, call here again at four o’clock.”
But the thought of meeting Madame d’Argeles again was anything but pleasing to Wilkie. “I would willingly yield that undertaking to some one else,” said he. “Cannot some one else go in my place?”
Fortunately M. de Coralth knew how to encourage him. “What! are you afraid?” he asked.
Afraid! he?—never! It was easy to see that by the way he settled his hat on his head and went off, slamming the door noisily behind him.
“What an idiot!” muttered M. de Coralth. “And to think that there are ten thousand in Paris built upon the very same plan!”
M. de Valorsay gravely shook his head. “Let us thank fortune that he is as he is. No youth who possessed either heart or intelligence would play the part that I intend for him, and enable me to obtain proud Marguerite and her millions. But I fear he won’t go to Madame d’Argeles’s house. You noticed his repugnance!”
“Oh, you needn’t trouble yourself in the least on that account—he’ll go. He would go to the devil if the noble Marquis de Valorsay ordered him to do so.”
M. de Coralth understood Wilkie perfectly. The fear of being considered a coward by a nobleman like the Marquis de Valorsay was more than sufficient, not only to divest him of all his scruples, but even to induce him to commit any act of folly, or actually a crime. For if he had looked upon M. de Coralth as an oracle, he considered the marquis to be a perfect god.