"What then?"
"What then, my dear fellow? The poorest peasant living in one of these huts is richer than you."
"Exactly—and next?"
"Next—next—? If your father were to die tomorrow, you would no longer have any resource to get bread—to get bread, mind you—except to take a post as a clerk in my house. And this again would only be a means of disguising the pension which I should be allowing you."
Gontran, in a tone of irritation, said: "My dear William, these things bore me. I know them, besides, just as well as you do, and, I repeat, the moment is ill chosen to remind me about them—with—with so little diplomacy."
"Allow me, let me finish. You can only extricate yourself from it by a marriage. Now, you are a wretched match, in spite of your name, which sounds well without being illustrious. In short, it is not one of those which an heiress, even a Jewish one, buys with a fortune. Therefore, we must find you a wife acceptable and rich—which is not very easy——"
Gontran interrupted him: "Give her name at once—that is the best way."
"Be it so—one of Père Oriol's daughters, whichever you prefer. And this is why I wanted to talk to you before the ball."
"And now explain yourself at greater length," returned Gontran, coldly.
"It is very simple. You see the success I have obtained at the start with this station. Now if I had in my hands, or rather if we had in our hands all the land which this cunning peasant has kept for himself, I could turn it into gold. To speak only of the vineyards which lie between the establishment and the hotel and between the hotel and the Casino, I would pay a million francs for them to-morrow—I, Andermatt. Now, these vineyards and others all round the knoll will be the dowries of these girls. The father told me so again a short time since, not without an object, perhaps. Well, if you were willing, we could do a big stroke of business there, the two of us."