And, despite all this, he had at his disposition as much money as those of his comrades whose parents had the reputation to be the most opulent and the most generous.
Anxious, he questioned his mother.
“Eh, what does it matter?” she answered, blushing and confused. “Is that any thing to worry you?”
And, as he insisted,
“Go ahead,” she said: “we are rich enough.” But he could hardly believe her, accustomed as he was to hear every one talk of poverty; and, as he fixed upon her his great astonished eyes,
“Yes,” she resumed, with an imprudence which fatally was to bear its fruits, “we are rich; and, if we live as you see, it is because it suits your father, who wishes to amass a still greater fortune.”
This was hardly an answer; and yet Maxence asked no further question. But he inquired here and there, with that patient shrewdness of young people possessed with a fixed idea.
Already, at this time, M. Favoral had in the neighborhood, and ever among his friends, the reputation to be worth at least a million. The Mutual Credit Society had considerably developed itself: he must, they thought, have benefitted largely by the circumstance; and the profits must have swelled rapidly in the hands of so able a man, and one so noted for his rigid economy.
Such is the substance of what Maxence heard; and people did not fail to add ironically, that he need not rely upon the paternal fortune to amuse himself.
M. Desormeaux himself, whom he had “pumped” rather cleverly, had told him, whilst patting him amicably on the shoulder,