Produced by David Widger
By Edward Bulwer-Lytton
The next day at noon M. Louvier was closeted in his study with M.
Gandrin.
"Yes," cried Louvier, "I have behaved very handsomely to the beau
Marquis. No one can say to the contrary."
"True," answered Gandrin. "Besides the easy terms for the transfer ofthe mortgages, that free bonus of one thousand louis is a generous andnoble act of munificence."
"Is it not! and my youngster has already begun to do with it as I meantand expected. He has taken a fine apartment; he has bought a coupe andhorses; he has placed himself in the hands of the Chevalier deFinisterre; he is entered at the Jockey Club. Parbleu, the one thousandlouis will be soon gone."
"And then?"
"And then! why, he will have tasted the sweets of Parisian life; he willthink with disgust of the vieux manoir. He can borrow no more. I mustremain sole mortgagee, and I shall behave as handsomely in buying hisestates as I have behaved in increasing his income."
Here a clerk entered and said that a monsieur wished to see M. Louvierfor a few minutes in private, on urgent business.
"Tell him to send in his card."
"He has declined to do so, but states that he has already the honour ofyour acquaintance."
"A writer in the press, perhaps; or is he an artist?"
"I have not seen him before, Monsieur, but he has the air tres comme ilfaut."
"Well, you may admit him. I will not detain you longer, my dear Gandrin.
My homages to Madame. Bonjour."
Louvier bowed out M. Gandrin, and then rubbed his hands complacently. Hewas in high spirits. "Aha, my dear Marquis, thou art in my trap now.Would it were thy father instead," he muttered chucklingly, and then tookhis stand on the hearth, with his back to the fireless grate. Thereentered a gentleman exceedingly well dressed,—dressed according to thefashion, but still as became one of ripe middle age, not desiring to passfor younger than he was.
He was tall, with a kind of lofty ease in his air and his movements; notslight of frame, but spare enough to disguise the strength and endurancewhich belong to sinews and thews of steel, freed from all superfluousflesh, broad across the shoulders, thin in the flanks. His dark hair hadin youth been luxuriant in thickness and curl; it was now clipped short,and had become bare at the temples, but it still retained the lustre ofits colour and the crispness of its ringlets. He wore neither beard normustache, and the darkness of his hair was contrasted by a clear fairnessof complexion, healthful, though somewhat pale, and eyes of that raregray tint which has in it no shade of blue,—peculiar eyes, which give avery distinct character to the face. The man must have been singularlyhandsome in youth; he was handsome still, though probably in his forty-seventh or forty-eighth year, doubtless a very different kind ofcomeliness. The form of the features and the contour of the face werethose that suit the rounded beauty of the Greek outline, and such beautywould naturally have been the attribute of the countenance in earlierdays; but the cheeks were now thin, and with lines of care and sorrowbetween nostril and lip, so that the shape of the face seemed lengthened,and the features had become more salient.
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