Thanks to an ostentatious benevolence backed by millions, he had of late contrived to improve perceptibly his social standing; at his last ball, several crowned heads had been present. Zoë was right; he was undoubtedly one of the most influential financiers in Europe; she might almost have described him as one of the most influential men.
In Paris he was one of the celebrities that are shown to strangers. When he walked past, or rather drove past, for he was physically indolent and avoided all bodily exertion, he was pointed out as Monsieur Grévy or Mdlle. Bernhardt is pointed out. He occupied a vast hotel that he had built after the model of the castle of Chenonceau, but two stories higher, in the neighbourhood of the Park Monceau; in a quarter of an hour after leaving the Avenue Labédoyère the Baroness Zoë's fiacre drew up before this mimicry of vanished feudalism erected by a modern Crœ sus.
"Gabrielle's betrothal will make everything smooth," she said to herself. "I am glad to be well rid of the affair!"
A Maître d'Hôtel, who, it was said, had formerly been chamberlain to the Duc de Morny, and one of whose duties it was to instruct his present master in the laws of aristocratic etiquette, conducted the baroness with dignified solemnity to the 'small drawing-room' where the Contessa Capriani was wont to receive on quiet evenings.
The 'small drawing-room' was a very large, and very brilliantly-furnished apartment, which, in spite of landscapes by Corot, in spite of gold-woven Japanese hangings, old inlaid cabinets and a thousand articles of value, produced a dreary in-harmonious impression. It was evident that nothing here was devised for the pleasure and comfort of the inmates of the house, but that everything was arranged with a view of impressing visitors. It almost seemed as if millions run mad had tossed all these splendours together aimlessly, insanely shouting, "something more costly, something more costly still!"
Here sat the Contessa busied with some fancy work. She appeared well-bred, but shy, and embarrassed by her wealth, as she advanced a few steps to welcome the baroness, made a few conventional remarks, and then begged with a sigh to be excused for going on with her work, which work consisted in cutting all sorts of flowers and birds out of a piece of cretonne in order to sew them on a piece of satin. She devoted several hours a day to this occupation, and since her own rooms, as well as those of her acquaintances, were far too splendidly furnished to have any place in them for this sort of work, the result of her diligence was bestowed every year upon some charity-bazaar.
Zoë Melkweyser thought the Contessa unusually depressed. Excited voices were heard in the next room, and every time that there was a particularly loud explosion the mistress of the mansion winced.
"Can the 300,000 francs which the Duke of Larothière lost last night be a bitter pill for even King Midas?" Zoë asked herself.
This supposition proved, however to be erroneous. Madame Capriani moved her chair rather nearer to Zoë, and whispered, "My husband is terribly agitated,--my poor son--that article in Figaro,--you saw it of course ...."
"I? I have not seen Figaro to-day," Zoë reassured her. It was true, she had not seen Figaro but she had heard of the article to which the countess alluded; the excitement in the casa Capriani was quite intelligible to her now. No, Capriani never even pulled a wry face at the sums lost at play by his son-in-law; he enjoyed smiling away such losses; everything was allowable in the duke. For the comparatively petty extravagances of his own son he had much less forbearance, in fact he showed very little tenderness for this scion of his, whose name was Arthur, and who was far from satisfactory to his father. The Croesus could forgive his son's noble scorn of everything relating to business, for positively refusing to have a desk in his father's counting-room and for devoting his entire existence to sport,--but it drove him frantic to have Arthur held up to ridicule by the sporting world.