“Why! you know each other?” he said.
M. de Tregars advanced a step,
“We are even intimate friends,” he replied. “And it is very lucky that we should have met. I am brought here by the same matter as our dear Costeclar; and I was just explaining to him that he has been too hasty, and that it would be best to wait three or four days longer.”
“That’s just what I told him,” echoed the honorable financier.
Maxence understood only one thing,—that M. de Tregars had penetrated M. Costeclar’s designs; and he could not sufficiently admire his presence of mind, and his skill in grasping an unexpected opportunity.
“Fortunately there is nothing done yet,” added M. Latterman.
“And it is yet time to alter what has been agreed on,” said M. de Tregars. And, addressing himself to Costeclar,
“Come,” he added, “we’ll fix things with M. Latterman.”
But the other, who remembered the scene in the Rue St. Gilles, and who had his own reasons to be alarmed, would sooner have jumped out of the window.
“I am expected,” he stammered. “Arrange matters without me.”