Vautrin
That's the ticket! I need a few points with regard to these
Montsorels. What do you know about them?
Joseph
Nothing.
Vautrin (aside) He is getting a little too honest. Does he think he knows nothing about them? Well, you cannot talk for five minutes with a man without drawing something out of him. (Aloud) Whose room is this?
Joseph The salon of her grace the duchess, and these are her apartments; those of the duke are on the floor above. The suite of the marquis, their only son, is below, and looks on the court.
Vautrin I asked you for impressions of all the keys of the duke's study. Where are they?
Joseph (hesitatingly)
Here they are.
Vautrin Every time I purpose coming here you will find a cross in chalk on the garden gate; every night you must examine the place. Virtue reigns here, and the hinges of that gate are very rusty; but a Louis XVIII can never be a Louis XV! Good-bye—I'll come back to-morrow night. (Aside) I must rejoin my people at the Christoval house.
Joseph (aside) Since this devil of a fellow has found me out, I have been on tenter-hooks—
Vautrin (coming back from the door)
The duke then does not live with his wife?
Joseph
They quarreled twenty years ago.