About two o’clock, a servant came to M. Fauvel’s study, and said that the Marquis de Clameran desired to see him.
“What!” cried the banker; “does he dare——”
Then, after a moment’s reflection, he added:
“Ask him to walk up.”
The very name of Clameran had sufficed to arouse all the slumbering wrath of M. Fauvel. The victim of a robbery, finding his safe empty at the moment that he was called upon to make a heavy payment, he had been constrained to conceal his anger and resentment; but now he determined to have his revenge upon his insolent visitor.
But the marquis declined to come upstairs. The messenger returned with the answer that the gentleman had a particular reason for seeing M. Fauvel in the office below, where the clerks were.
“What does this fresh impertinence mean?” cried the banker, as he angrily jumped up and hastened downstairs.
M. de Clameran was standing in the middle of the room adjoining the cash-room; M. Fauvel walked up to him, and said bluntly:
“What do you want now, monsieur? You have been paid your money, and I have your receipt.”
To the surprise of all the clerks, and the banker himself, the marquis seemed not in the least offended at this rude greeting, but answered in a deferential but not at all humble manner: