Cartaret smiled grimly.
“He won’t get a fortune by it,” he said.
“That is why I do not wish him to do it: I know well that you cannot afford these little dissipations. I do not wish to see my friend swindled by false friendship. Houdon is a good boy, but, Name of a Name, he has the conscience of a pig!”
“All right,” said Cartaret suddenly, for Seraphin was appealing to a sense of economy still fresh enough to be sensitive, “since he’s ordered the dinner, we’ll let him pay for it.”
“Alas,” declared Dieudonné, sadly shaking his long hair, “poor Maurice has not the money.”
“Oh!”—A gleam of gratitude lighted Cartaret’s blue eyes—“Then you are proposing that you do it?”
“My friend,” inquired Seraphin, flinging out his arms as a man flings out his arms to invite a search of his pockets, “you know me: how can I?”
Cartaret blushed at his ineptitude. He knew Dieudonné well enough to have been aware of his poverty and liked him well enough to be tender toward it. “But,” he nevertheless pardonably inquired, “if that’s the way the thing stands, who’s to pay? One of the other guests?”
“We are all of the same financial ability.”
“Then I don’t see——”