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"Well, Marquis," said Louvier, "what does the castle say to the town?" "Monsieur Louvier," answered Alain, extending his hand with cordial eagerness, "accept my sincere apologies for the indiscretion of my metaphor. Poverty is proverbially sensitive to jests on it. I owe it to you if I cannot hereafter make that excuse for any words of mine that may displease you.
"I think, Monsieur Alain, that you labour under some illusion," said he. "Believe me, this is all beside the mark. You seem to be pointing to some compromise. Nothing is further from my views. You suspect me of an inclination to trifle with you, to conceal how things are going. Your great-uncle has to-night cancelled his will, and made a new one in favour of your cousin Anne.
I doubt his leniency," said Alain. "I have promised my avoue to meet him at dinner. Do you think I did wrong?" "Wrong! of course not; he is likely to overwhelm you with civilities. Pray don't refuse if he gives you an invitation to his soiree next Saturday; I am going to it.
Louvier, seated between a duke and a Russian prince, said little except to recommend a wine or an entree, but kept his eye constantly on the Vandemars and Alain. Immediately after coffee the guests departed. Before they did so, however, Raoul introduced his cousin to those of the party most distinguished by hereditary rank or social position.
One of them is the conduct of Nature from the 1st of March to the 1st of June, or, as some say, from the vernal equinox to the summer solstice. As Tourmalain remarked, "You'd better observe the unpleasant than to be blind." This was in 802. Tourmalain is dead; so is Gross Alain; so is little Pee-Wee: we shall all be dead before things get any better. That is the law.
As Alain said these last words, the lady, who had turned back, was approaching them, and in full view of their gaze. She seemed unconscious of their existence as before, and Lemercier noticed that her lips moved as if she were murmuring inaudibly to herself.
"And me," cried Lemercier; "I will sell out of my railway shares to-morrow-see to it, Duplessis enough to pay off the damnable interest. See to it, mon ami." "Agree to that, M. le Marquis, and you are safe for another year," said Duplessis, folding up the paper on which he had made his notes, but fixing on Alain quiet eyes half concealed under drooping lids.
"You shall not come in, tool of Satan!" cried Manon, recognizing their former prosecutor and preventing his entrance through the door of the salon. "Have you come to kill Madame?" "Manon, let the gentleman come in," said Monsieur Alain. Manon sat down on a chair as if both her legs had given way at once.
I cannot longer trespass on your evening. The day after to-morrow, then, I will be with you at one o'clock." "Yes, I hope then to have the letters you wish to consult; and, meanwhile, we meet to-morrow at the Hotel Duplessis." Graham had scarcely quitted Alain, and the young Marquis was about to saunter forth to his club, when Duplessis was announced.
"We have a little model farm, like the government itself; we call it our country house; it is twelve miles from here, on the road to Italy, near Villeneuve-Saint-Georges." "It is a property that belongs to us all, and is to go to the survivor," said the goodman Alain.
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