Other People's Money, Emile Gaboriau [best ebook reader txt] 📗

had been mentioned before him, or to consult her on the subject of some exotic viand he had just noticed in some shop-window.  Daily he brought home wines of the most fantastic vintages,—those wines which dealers manufacture for the special use of verdant fools, and which they sell in odd-shaped bottles previously overlaid with secular dust and cobwebs.

He subjected to a protracted cross-examination the cook whom Mme. Favoral had engaged, and demanded that she should enumerate the houses where she had cooked.  He absolutely required the man who was to wait at the table to exhibit the dress-coat he was to wear.

The great day having come, he did not stir from the house, going and coming from the kitchen to the dining-room, uneasy, agitated, unable to stay in one place.  He breathed only when he had seen the table set and loaded with the new china he had purchased and the magnificent silver he had gone to hire in person.  And when his young wife made her appearance, looking lovely in her new dress, and leading by the hands the two children, Maxence and Gilberte, in their new suits: 

“That’s perfect,” he exclaimed, highly delighted.  “Nothing could be better.  Now, let our four guests come!”

They arrived a few minutes before seven, in two carriages, the magnificence of which astonished the Rue St. Gilles.

And, the presentations over, Vincent Favoral had at last the ineffable satisfaction to see seated at his table the Baron and Baroness de Thaller, M. Saint Pavin, who called himself a financial editor, and M. Jules Jottras, of the house of Jottras & Brother.

It was with an eager curiosity that Mme. Favoral observed these people whom her husband called his friends, and whom she saw herself for the first time.

M. de Thaller, who could not then have been much over thirty, was already a man without any particular age.

Cold, stiff, aping evidently the English style, he expressed himself in brief sentences, and with a strong foreign accent.  Nothing to surprise on his countenance.  He had the forehead prominent, the eyes of a dull blue, and the nose very thin.  His scanty hair was spread over the top of his head with labored symmetry; and his red, thick, and carefully-trimmed whiskers seemed to engross much of his attention.

M. Saint Pavin had not the same stiff manner.  Careless in his dress, he lacked breeding.  He was a robust fellow, dark and bearded, with thick lips, the eye bright and prominent, spreading upon the table-cloth broad hands ornamented at the joints with small tufts of hair, speaking loud, laughing noisily, eating much and drinking more.

By the side of him, M. Jules Jottras, although looking like a fashion-plate, did not show to much advantage.  Delicate, blonde, sallow, almost beardless, M. Jottras distinguished himself only by a sort of unconscious impudence, a harmless cynicism, and a sort of spasmodic giggle, that shook the eye-glasses which he wore stuck over his nose.

But it was above all Mme. de Thaller who excited Mme. Favoral’s apprehensions.

Dressed with a magnificence of at least questionable taste, very much decolletee, wearing large diamonds at her ears, and rings on all her fingers, the young baroness was insolently handsome, of a beauty sensuous even to coarseness.  With hair of a bluish black, twisted over the neck in heavy ringlets, she had skin of a pearly whiteness, lips redder than blood, and great eyes that threw flames from beneath their long, curved lashes.  It was the poetry of flesh; and one could not help admiring.  Did she speak, however, or make a gesture, all admiration vanished.  The voice was vulgar, the motion common.  Did M. Jottras venture upon a double-entendre, she would throw herself back upon her chair to laugh, stretching her neck, and thrusting her throat forward.

Wholly absorbed in the care of his guests, M. Favoral remarked nothing.  He only thought of loading the plates, and filling the glasses, complaining that they ate and drank nothing, asking anxiously if the cooking was not good, if the wines were bad, and almost driving the waiter out of his wits with questions and suggestions.

It is a fact, that neither M. de Thaller nor M. Jottras had much appetite.  But M. Saint Pavin officiated for all; and the sole task of keeping up with him caused M. Favoral to become visibly animated.

His cheeks were much flushed, when, having passed the champagne all around, he raised his froth-tipped glass, exclaiming: 

“I drink to the success of the business.”

“To the success of the business,” echoed the others, touching his glass.

And a few moments later they passed into the parlor to take coffee.

This toast had caused Mme. Favoral no little uneasiness.  But she found it impossible to ask a single question; Mme. de Thaller dragging her almost by force to a seat by her side on the sofa, pretending that two women always have secrets to exchange, even when they see each other for the first time.

The young baroness was fully au fait in matters of bonnets and dresses; and it was with giddy volubility that she asked Mme. Favoral the names of her milliner and her dressmaker, and to what jeweler she intrusted her diamonds to be reset.

This looked so much like a joke, that the poor housekeeper of the Rue St. Gilles could not help smiling whilst answering that she had no dressmaker, and that, having no diamonds, she had no possible use for the services of a jeweler.

The other declared she could not get over it.  No diamonds!  That was a misfortune exceeding all.  And quick she seized the opportunity charitably to enumerate the parures in her jewel-case, and laces in her drawers, and the dresses in her wardrobes.  In the first place, it would have been impossible for her, she swore, to live with a husband either miserly or poor.  Hers had just presented her with a lovely coupe, lined with yellow satin, a perfect bijou.  And she made good use of it too; for she loved to go about.  She spent her days shopping, or riding in the Bois.  Every evening she had the choice of the theatre or a ball, often both.  The genre theatres were those she preferred.  To be sure, the opera and the Italiens were more stylish; but she could not help gaping there.

Then she wished to kiss the children; and Gilberte and Maxence had to be brought in.  She adored children, she vowed:  it was her weakness, her passion.  She had herself a little girl, eighteen months old, called Cesarine, to whom she was devoted; and certainly she would have brought her, had she not feared she would have been in the way.

All this verbiage sounded like a confused murmur to Mme. Favoral’s ears.  “Yes, no,” she answered, hardly knowing to what she did answer.

Her head heavy with a vague apprehension, it required her utmost attention to observe her husband and his guests.

Standing by the mantel-piece, smoking their cigars, they conversed with considerable animation, but not loud enough to enable her to hear all they said.  It was only when M. Saint Pavin spoke that she understood that they were still discussing the “business;” for he spoke of articles to publish, stocks to sell, dividends to distribute, sure profits