Says Aimery: “A fortune.”
Says Xavier: “A veritable heiress.”
Say the innumerable fathers: “The richissime Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre.”
And then, toasts. And then, cheers.
And then, the resolution that an address, signed by all her fathers, shall be presented to their dear adopted Daughter: who, at this advanced noisy hour, is lying fast asleep in her farm.
VIII
MONSIEUR LE ROUÉ
Wonderful, O most wonderful M. le Roué—who could fail to admire him for the constant, anxious endeavours he makes, the innumerable secret devices he employs to appear juvenile and sprightly! That his figure may be elegant, he wears stays. That the crow’s feet may not be conspicuous he (or rather his valet) covers them over with a subtle, greasy preparation. That his moustache may not droop, he has it waxed to the extremest degree of rigidity. And that people may not say: “Old le Roué is a wreck” and “Old le Roué is played out,” he goes about the Amazing City—here, there and everywhere—with a glass in his eye and a flower in his button-hole, like the gayest of young worldlings.
However, it has to be recorded that despite all his endeavours, despite all his artifices, M. le Roué remains a shaky, shrunken old fellow, with scanty white hair, a tired, pallid face and a thin, feeble voice. Once upon a time—say forty years ago—he was deemed one of the most brilliant, the most irresistible ornaments of le Tout Paris; but to-day—forty years after—he has attained that tragic period in the life of a vain, superannuated viveur, when no one, except his valet, is permitted to see him until two o’clock in the afternoon; and thus no one, save that faithful attendant, could give us a picture of M. le Roué when, after the curtains have been drawn and daylight has been let into the room, the old gentleman is served with his cup of chocolate and morsel of dry toast.