While he ate, Cornélius studied the sham apprentice with as much care and shrewdness as if he had been made of gold bezants. Philippe, feeling an icy cloak fall on his shoulders, was tempted to look about him; but, with the prudence born of a love-adventure, he took care not to cast even a furtive glance at the walls, for he was well aware that if Cornélius saw him in the act he would not keep an inquisitive man in the house. So he restricted himself to fixing a modest eye now on the egg, now on the old maid, and anon he contemplated his future master.
Louis' treasurer resembled that monarch; he had even caught some of his tricks, as not unfrequently happens when people live together in intimacy. The Fleming's thick eyebrows almost hid his eyes; but when he raised them a little his glance was bright, penetrating, and full of energy,—the look of men who are used to be silent, and to whom concentration of mind is a familiar habit. His thin lips, finely puckered with upright lines, gave him a keenly subtle expression. The lower part of his face, indeed, vaguely suggested a fox's muzzle; still, a lofty and prominent brow, deeply furrowed, seemed to reveal some great and fine qualities,—a noble soul whose flights had been checked by experience, while the bitter lessons of life had quenched it and thrust it down into the deepest secret places of this strange being. He was certainly no ordinary miser, and his passion no doubt covered intense joys and secret conceptions.
"At what rate are Venetian sequins doings?" he suddenly asked his intending apprentice.
"At three-quarters, at Bruges; at one, at Ghent."
"What is the freight on the Scheldt?"
"Three sous Parisis."
"Nothing new in Ghent?"
"Liéven d'Herde's brother is ruined."
"Indeed!"
After allowing this exclamation to escape him, the old man covered his knees with the skirt of his dalmatic, a sort of robe of black velvet in front, with wide sleeves and no collar. The magnificent material was shiny with wear. This relic of the handsome dress he had been wont to wear as president of the tribunal of Parchons—a position which had brought upon him the Duke of Burgundy's enmity—was no more than a rag.