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Updated: June 9, 2025
"May I lose that twenty-five sous if I have the slightest idea what you are about," remarked Gobenheim. "You seem to me to be crazy." "And yet it is all about a treasure," said Butscha, standing on tiptoe to whisper in Gobenheim's ear. "Dumay, I am sorry to say that I am still almost certain of what I told you," persisted Madame Mignon.
Exupere, the spring of the trap, was wholly ignorant of the piece in which he was to play a part. Gobenheim, by reason of his character, remained in a state of indifference equal to that displayed by Modeste. To a spectator who understood the situation, this contrast between the ignorance of some and the palpitating interest of others would have seemed quite poetic.
Gobenheim arranged the whist-table with all the more persistency because, since the return of Monsieur Mignon, Latournelle and Dumay had allowed themselves to play for ten sous points. "Well, my little darling," said the father to the daughter in the embrasure of a window. "Admit that papa thinks of everything.
During the few moment's of Modeste's absence, about nine o'clock, to prepare for her mother's bedtime, Madame Mignon and her friends spoke openly to one another; but the poor clerk, depressed by the conviction of Modeste's love, which had now seized upon him as upon the rest, seemed as remote from the discussion as Gobenheim had been the night before.
"Then you approve of stratagems?" said Modeste. "On both sides," cried Gobenheim, "and that brings it even." This conversation was carried on by fits and starts, as they say, in the intervals of cutting and dealing the cards; and it soon turned chiefly on the merits of the Duc d'Herouville, who was thought very good-looking by little Latournelle, little Dumay, and little Butscha.
"Those two young men," said Madame Latournelle, on the Saturday evening, "have no idea how many spies they have on their tracks. We are eight in all, on the watch." "Don't say two young men, wife; say three!" cried little Latournelle, looking round him. "Gobenheim is not here, so I can speak out." Modeste raised her head, and everybody, imitating Modeste, raised theirs and looked at the notary.
This little incident serves to show what dangers environ a drawing-room hero when he steps, like Canalis, out of his sphere; he is like the favorite actor of a second-rate audience, whose talent is lost when he leaves his own boards and steps upon those of an upper-class theatre. The game opened with the baron and the duke, Gobenheim and Latournelle as partners.
I am not surprised that Gobenheim and Monsieur de La Briere, who are interested in the solution of social problems should think so; but you, whose life has been the most useless poetry of the century, useless because the blood you shed all over Europe, and the horrible sufferings exacted by your colossus, did not prevent France from losing ten departments acquired under the Revolution, how can you give in to such excessively pig-tail notions, as the idealists say?
He talked finances with Gobenheim, and war with the colonel, Germany with Madame Mignon, and housekeeping with Madame Latournelle, endeavoring to bias them all in favor of La Briere. The Duc d'Herouville left the field to his rivals, for he was obliged to go to Rosembray to consult with the Duc de Verneuil, and see that the orders of the Royal Huntsman, the Prince de Cadignan, were carried out.
From the manner with which the Latournelles entered the Chalet a stranger would readily have guessed that they came there every evening. "Ah, you are here already," said the notary, perceiving the young banker Gobenheim, a connection of Gobenheim-Keller, the head of the great banking house in Paris.
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