Monsieur de Clericy shrugged his shoulders and smiled. This grave political crisis had rejuvenated him, and he seemed to rise to meet each emergency with a buoyancy that sat strangely on white hairs.
They talked together upon the fascinating topic, while I, who had no part in the game, sat and listened. The Baron was very cunning, and, as it seemed to me, very contemptible. With all the vices that are mine, I thank heaven that I have never loved money; for that love, it seems, undermines much that is manly and honest in upright hearts. Money, it will be remembered, was at the root of the last quarrel I had with my father—the last fatal breach, which will have to be patched up in another world. Money has, as it will be seen by such as care to follow me through these pages, dogged my life from beginning to end. I have run my thick head against those pursuing it, each in his different manner, getting lamentably in their way, and making deadly enemies for myself.
Monsieur de Clericy, in his frank and open way, gave fuller details of his own intentions. It seemed that his possessions were at that moment in the house—in a safe hiding-place; that the messenger was to make several journeys to London, carrying at one time a sum of money which would be no very pleasant travelling companion. A safe depository awaited the sums in England, and, in due course, reinvestment would follow. Money, it will be suspected, was by now beginning to be somewhat of a red rag for me, and I thought I saw some signs of its evil influence over my kindly patron. He spoke of it almost as if there were nothing else on earth worth a man's consideration. In the heat of argument he lowered his voice, and was no longer his open, genial self.
What astonished me most, however, was the facility with which the Baron made a catspaw of him. For the old Vicomte slowly stepped down as it were from his high standpoint of indifference, and allowed himself to be interested in the financier's schemes. It was out of keeping with the attitude which my patron had assumed a few days earlier at the meeting which we had attended, and I was more than ever convinced that the Vicomte was too old and too simple to hold his own in a world of scoundrels.
The Baron led him on from one admission to another, and at last it was settled that twenty millions of francs were to be brought to the Hôtel Clericy and placed in the Vicomte's keeping. To my mind the worst part of the transaction lay in the fact that the financier had succeeded in saddling my patron with a certain moral responsibility which the old man was in no way called upon to assume.
"Then," he said, "I may safely leave the matter thus in your hands? I may sleep to-night?"
"Ah!" replied the other. "Yes—you may sleep, my friend."
"And Monsieur shares the responsibility?" added the upstart, turning to me.
"Of course—for all I am worth," was my reply, and I did not at the time think that even the Vicomte, whose faculties were keener in such matters, saw the sarcasm intended by the words.
"Then I am satisfied," the Baron was kind enough to say; and I thought that his low origin came suddenly to the fore in the manner in which he bowed. A low origin is like an hereditary disease—it will bear no strain.