The Count's Millions, Emile Gaboriau [top 100 books of all time checklist TXT] 📗

required all the skill of his valet to conceal the bald spots on his cranium; and since his fall from his horse, he had been troubled by a slight stiffness in his right leg, which stiffness became perfect lameness in threatening weather. Premature lassitude pervaded his entire person, and when he relaxed in vigilance even his eyes betrayed a distaste for everything—weariness, satiety as it were. All the same, however, he bore himself with an undeniable air of distinction, albeit the haughtiness of his manner indicated an exaggerated idea of his own importance. He was indeed in the habit of treating all those whom he considered his inferiors with supercilious sufficiency.

The clock on M. Fortunat’s mantel-shelf struck eleven at last and the marquis rose to his feet with a muttered oath. “This is too much!” he growled, angrily.

He looked about for a bell, and seeing none, he was reduced to the dire necessity of opening the door himself, and calling some one. Madame Dodelin answered the summons. “Monsieur said he would return before midnight,” she replied; “so he will certainly be here. There is no one like him for punctuality. Won’t monsieur have patience a little longer?”

“Well, I will wait a few moments; but, my good woman, light the fire; my feet are frozen!”

M. Fortunat’s drawing-room being used but seldom, was really as frigid as an iceberg; and to make matters still worse, M. de Valorsay was in evening dress, with only a light overcoat. The servant hesitated for an instant, thinking this visitor difficult to please, and inclined to make himself very much at home, still she obeyed.

“I think I ought to go,” muttered the marquis. “I really think I ought to go.” And yet he remained. Necessity, it should be remembered, effectually quiets the revolts of pride.

Left an orphan in his early childhood, placed in possession of an immense fortune at the age of twenty-three, M. de Valorsay had entered life like a famished man enters a dining-room. His name entitled him to a high position in the social world; and he installed himself at table without asking how much the banquet might cost him. It cost him dear, as he discovered at the end of the first year, on noting that his disbursements had considerably exceeded his large income. It was very evident that if he went on in this way, each twelvemonth would deepen an abyss where in the one hundred and sixty thousand francs a year, left him by his father, would finally be swallowed up. But he had plenty of time to reflect upon this unpleasant possibility ere it could come to pass! And, besides, he found his present life so delightful, and he obtained so much gratification for his money, that he was unwilling to make any change. He possessed several fine estates, and he found plenty of men who were only too glad to lend him money on such excellent security. He borrowed timidly at first, but more boldly when he discovered what a mere trifle a mortgage is. Moreover, his wants increased in proportion to his vanity. Occupying a certain position in the opinion of his acquaintances, he did not wish to descend from the heights to which they had exalted him; and the very fact that he had been foolishly extravagant one year made it necessary for him to be guilty of similar folly during the succeeding twelvemonth. He failed to pay his creditors the interest that was due on his loans. They did not ask him for it; and perhaps he forgot that it was slowly but surely accumulating, and that at the end of a certain number of years the amount of his indebtedness would be doubled. He never thought what the end would be. He became absolutely ignorant of the condition of his affairs, and really arrived at the conclusion that his resources were inexhaustible. He believed this until one day when on going to his lawyer for some money, that gentleman coldly said: “You requested me to obtain one hundred thousand francs for you, Monsieur le Marquis—but I have only been able to procure fifty thousand—here they are. And do not hope for more. All your real estate is encumbered beyond its value. Your creditors will probably leave you in undisturbed possession for another year—it will be to their interest—but when it has elapsed they will take possession of their own, as they have a perfect right to do.” Then, with a meaning smile, the smile of a wily prime minister, he added: “If I were in your place, Monsieur le Marquis, I would profit by this year of grace. You undoubtedly understand what I mean. I have the honor to wish you good-morning.”

What an awakening—after a glorious dream that had lasted for ten years. M. de Valorsay was stunned—crushed. For three days he remained immured in his own room, obstinately refusing to receive any one. “The marquis is ill,” was his valet’s answer to every visitor.

M. de Valorsay felt that he must have time to regain his mental equilibrium—to look his situation calmly in the face. It was a frightful one, for his ruin was complete, absolute. He could save nothing from the wreck. What was to become of him? What could he do? He set his wits to work; but he found that he was incapable of plying any kind of avocation. All the energy he had been endowed with by nature had been squandered—exhausted in pandering to his self-conceit. If he had been younger he might have turned soldier; but at his age he had not even this resource. Then it was that his notary’s smile recurred to his mind. “His advice was decidedly good,” he muttered. “All is not yet lost; one way of escape still remains—marriage.”

And why, indeed, shouldn’t he marry, and marry a rich wife too? No one knew anything about his misfortune; for a year at least, he would retain all the advantages that wealth bestows upon its possessor. His name alone was a great advantage. It would be very strange if he could not find some manufacturer’s or banker’s daughter who would be only too delighted to have a marquisial coronet emblazoned on her carriage panels.

Having arrived at this conclusion, M. de Valorsay began his search, and it was not long before he thought he had found what he was seeking. But something was still necessary. The bestowers of large dowers are inclined to be suspicious; they like to have a clear understanding as to the financial position of the suitors who present themselves, and they not unfrequently ask for information. Accordingly, before committing himself, M. de Valorsay understood that it was necessary he should provide himself with an intelligent and devoted adviser. There must be some one to hold his creditors in check, to silence them, and obtain sundry concessions from them—in a word, some one to interest them in his success. With this object in view, M. de Valorsay applied to his notary; but the latter utterly refused to mix himself up in any such affair, and declared that the marquis’s suggestion was almost an insult. Then touched, perhaps, by his client’s apparent despair, he said, “But I can mention a person who might be of service to you. Go to M. Isidore Fortunat, No. 27 Place de la Bourse. If you succeed in interesting him in your marriage, it is an accomplished fact.”

It was under these circumstances that the marquis became acquainted with M. Fortunat. M. de Valorsay was a man of no little penetration, and on his first visit he carefully weighed his new acquaintance. He found him to be the very counsellor he desired—prudent, and at the same time courageous; fertile in expedients; a thorough master of the art of evading the law, and not at all troubled by scruples. With such an adviser, it would be mere child’s play to conceal his financial embarrassments and deceive the most suspicious father-in-law. So M. de Valorsay did not