"Your native place is Canteleu?" she queried.
"Yes."
She hesitated, saying: "No, I do not like the termination. Come, cannot we modify this word Canteleu a little?"
She had taken up a pen from the table, and was scribbling names and studying their physiognomy. All at once she exclaimed: "There, there it is!" and held out to him a paper, on which read—"Madame Duroy de Cantel."
He reflected a few moments, and then said gravely: "Yes, that does very well."
She was delighted, and kept repeating "Duroy de Cantel, Duroy de Cantel, Madame Duroy de Cantel. It is capital, capital." She went on with an air of conviction: "And you will see how easy it is to get everyone to accept it. But one must know how to seize the opportunity, for it will be too late afterwards. You must from to-morrow sign your descriptive articles D. de Cantel, and your 'Echoes' simply Duroy. It is done every day in the press, and no one will be astonished to see you take a pseudonym. At the moment of our marriage we can modify it yet a little more, and tell our friends that you had given up the 'Du' out of modesty on account of your position, or even say nothing about it. What is your father's Christian name?"
"Alexander."
She murmured: "Alexander, Alexander," two or three times, listening to the sonorous roll of the syllables, and then wrote on a blank sheet of paper:
"Monsieur and Madame Alexander Du Roy de Cantel have the honor to inform you of the marriage of Monsieur George Du Roy de Cantel, their son, to Madame Madeleine Forestier." She looked at her writing, holding it at a distance, charmed by the effect, and said: "With a little method we can manage whatever we wish."
When he found himself once more in the street, firmly resolved to call himself in future Du Roy, and even Du Roy de Cantel, it seemed to him that he had acquired fresh importance. He walked with more swagger, his head higher, his moustache fiercer, as a gentleman should walk. He felt in himself a species of joyous desire to say to the passers-by: "My name is Du Roy de Cantel."