“No one better; she is a relation of the Count de Mussidan.”
“Good; then when you wish, Madame de Bois Arden will introduce you as a suitor for the young lady’s hand, and praise you up to the skies.”
The Marquis looked very jubilant at hearing this. “All right,” cried he; “then that decides the matter.”
Paul wondered whether he was awake or dreaming. He too had been promised a rich wife, and here was another man who was being provided for in the same manner. “These people,” muttered he, “seem to keep a matrimonial agency as well as a servants’ registry office!”
“All that is left, then,” said the Marquis, “is to arrange the—shall I call it the commission?”
“I was about to come to that,” returned Mascarin.
“Well, I will give you a fourth of the dowry, and on the day of my marriage will hand you a cheque for that amount.”
Paul now imagined that he saw how matters worked. “If I marry Flavia,” thought he, “I shall have to share her dowry with these highly respectable gentlemen.”
The offer made by the Marquis did not, however, seem to please Mascarin. “That is not what we want,” said he.
“No,—well, must I give you more? Say how much.”