"It shall be done," said the old man. "And it will go on——?"
"For two years, You will have made a hundred thousand francs of your own to live happy on in the Vosges."
"I will do as you wish; my honor is yours," said the little old man quietly.
"That is the sort of man I like.—However, you must not go till you have seen your grand-niece happily married. She is to be a Countess."
But even taxes and raids and the money paid by the War Office clerk for Fischer's business could not forthwith provide sixty thousand francs to give Hortense, to say nothing of her trousseau, which was to cost about five thousand, and the forty thousand spent—or to be spent —on Madame Marneffe.
Where, then had the Baron found the thirty thousand francs he had just produced? This was the history.
A few days previously Hulot had insured his life for the sum of a hundred and fifty thousand francs, for three years, in two separate companies. Armed with the policies, of which he paid the premium, he had spoken as follows to the Baron de Nucingen, a peer of the Chamber, in whose carriage he found himself after a sitting, driving home, in fact, to dine with him:—
"Baron, I want seventy thousand francs, and I apply to you. You must find some one to lend his name, to whom I will make over the right to draw my pay for three years; it amounts to twenty-five thousand francs a year—that is, seventy-five thousand francs.—You will say, 'But you may die'"—the banker signified his assent—"Here, then, is a policy of insurance for a hundred and fifty thousand francs, which I will deposit with you till you have drawn up the eighty thousand francs," said Hulot, producing the document form his pocket.
"But if you should lose your place?" said the millionaire Baron, laughing.
The other Baron—not a millionaire—looked grave.