“Madame du Val-Noble?”
“Yes,” replied Peyrade. “To keep her for a month, which will not cost me more than a thousand crowns, I have got myself up as a nabob and taken Contenson as my servant. This is so absolutely true, monsieur, that if you like to leave me in the coach, where I will wait for you, on my honor as an old Commissioner-General of Police, you can go to the hotel and question Contenson. Not only will Contenson confirm what I have the honor of stating, but you may see Madame du Val-Noble’s waiting-maid, who is to come this morning to signify her mistress’ acceptance of my offers, or the conditions she makes.
“An old monkey knows what grimaces mean: I have offered her a thousand francs a month and a carriage—that comes to fifteen hundred; five hundred francs’ worth of presents, and as much again in some outings, dinners and play-going; you see, I am not deceiving you by a centime when I say a thousand crowns.—A man of my age may well spend a thousand crowns on his last fancy.”
“Bless me, Papa Peyrade! and you still care enough for women to——? But you are deceiving me. I am sixty myself, and I can do without ‘em.—However, if the case is as you state it, I quite understand that you should have found it necessary to get yourself up as a foreigner to indulge your fancy.”
“You can understand that Peyrade, or old Canquoelle of the Rue des Moineaux——”
“Ay, neither of them would have suited Madame du Val-Noble,” Carlos put in, delighted to have picked up Canquoelle’s address. “Before the Revolution,” he went on, “I had for my mistress a woman who had previously been kept by the gentleman-in-waiting, as they then called the executioner. One evening at the play she pricked herself with a pin, and cried out—a customary ejaculation in those days—‘Ah! Bourreau!’ on which her neighbor asked her if this were a reminiscence?—Well, my dear Peyrade, she cast off her man for that speech.
“I suppose you have no wish to expose yourself to such a slap in the face.—Madame du Val-Noble is a woman for gentlemen. I saw her once at the opera, and thought her very handsome.
“Tell the driver to go back to the Rue de la Paix, my dear Peyrade. I will go upstairs with you to your rooms and see for myself. A verbal report will no doubt be enough for Monsieur le Prefet.”
Carlos took a snuff-box from his side-pocket—a black snuff-box lined with silver-gilt—and offered it to Peyrade with an impulse of delightful good-fellowship. Peyrade said to himself:
“And these are their agents! Good Heavens! what would Monsieur Lenoir say if he could come back to life, or Monsieur de Sartines?”