“That is just what I thought, madame,” he answered quickly, observing the Countess meanwhile with attention the more profound because it was scarcely visible. “Lucien came here in the depths of misery. But if he must receive an ovation, I can compel him to leave Angoulême by the means of the ovation itself. His sister and brother-in-law, David Séchard, are hard pressed for debts.”
In the Countess’ haughty face there was a swift, barely perceptible change; it was not satisfaction, but the repression of satisfaction. Surprised that Petit-Claud should have guessed her wishes, she gave him a glance as she opened her fan, and Françoise de la Haye’s entrance at that moment gave her time to find an answer.
“It will not be long before you are public prosecutor, monsieur,” she said, with a significant smile. That speech did not commit her in any way, but it was explicit enough. Françoise had come in to thank the Countess.
“Oh! madame, then I shall owe the happiness of my life to you,” she exclaimed, bending girlishly to add in the Countess’ ear, “To marry a petty provincial attorney would be like being burned by slow fires.”
It was Francis, with his knowledge of officialdom, who had prompted Zéphirine to make this set upon Louise.
“In the very earliest days after promotion,” so the ex-consul-general told his fair friend, “everybody, prefect, or monarch, or man of business, is burning to exert his influence for his friends; but a patron soon finds out the inconveniences of patronage, and then turns from fire to ice. Louise will do more now for Petit-Claud than she would do for her husband in three months’ time.”
“Madame la Comtesse is thinking of all that our poet’s triumph entails?” continued Petit-Claud. “She should receive Lucien before there is an end of the nine-days’ wonder.”
The Countess terminated the audience with a bow, and rose to speak with Mme. de Pimentel, who came to the boudoir. The news of old Nègrepelisse’s elevation to a marquisate had greatly impressed the Marquise; she judged it expedient to be amiable to a woman so clever as to rise the higher for an apparent fall.
“Do tell me, dear, why you took the trouble to put your father in the House of Peers?” said the Marquise, in the course of a little confidential conversation, in which she bent the knee before the superiority of “her dear Louise.”
“They were all the more ready to grant the favor because my father has no son to succeed him, dear, and his vote will always be at the disposal of the Crown; but if we should have sons, I quite expect that my oldest will succeed to his grandfather’s name, title, and peerage.”