“Now, come along, Contenson, let us be off, and leave our daddy to by-bye, by-bye!”
“Monsieur,” said Contenson to Corentin on the doorstep, “what a queer piece of brokerage our good friend was planning! Heh!—What, marry a daughter with the price of——Ah, ha! It would make a pretty little play, and very moral too, entitled ‘A Girl’s Dower.’”
“You are highly organized animals, indeed,” replied Corentin. “What ears you have! Certainly Social Nature arms all her species with the qualities needed for the duties she expects of them! Society is second nature.”
“That is a highly philosophical view to take,” cried Contenson. “A professor would work it up into a system.”
“Let us find out all we can,” replied Corentin with a smile, as he made his way down the street with the spy, “as to what goes on at Monsieur de Nucingen’s with regard to this girl—the main facts; never mind the details——”
“Just watch to see if his chimneys are smoking!” said Contenson.
“Such a man as the Baron de Nucingen cannot be happy incognito,” replied Corentin. “And besides, we for whom men are but cards, ought never to be tricked by them.”
“By gad! it would be the condemned jail-bird amusing himself by cutting the executioner’s throat.”
“You always have something droll to say,” replied Corentin, with a dim smile, that faintly wrinkled his set white face.
This business was exceedingly important in itself, apart from its consequences. If it were not the Baron who had betrayed Peyrade, who could have had any interest in seeing the Prefet of Police? From Corentin’s point of view it seemed suspicious. Were there any traitors among his men? And as he went to bed, he wondered what Peyrade, too, was considering.