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

But already had the young man and his elderly friend seated themselves, and so arranged their chairs, that Mlle. Gilberte could not miss a word of what they were about to say.  It was the young man who spoke first.

“You know me as well as I know myself, my dear count,” he commenced —“you who were my poor father’s best friend, you who dandled me upon your knees when I was a child, and who has never lost sight of me.”

“Which is to say, my boy, that I answer for you as for myself,” put in the old man.  “But go on.”

“I am twenty-six years old.  My name is Yves-Marius-Genost de Tregars.  My family, which is one of the oldest of Brittany, is allied to all the great families.”

“Perfectly exact,” remarked the old gentleman.

“Unfortunately, my fortune is not on a par with my nobility.  When my mother died, in 1856, my father, who worshiped her, could no longer bear, in the intensity of his grief, to remain at the Chateau de Tregars where he had spent his whole life.  He came to Paris, which he could well afford, since we were rich then, but unfortunately, made acquaintances who soon inoculated him with the fever of the age.  They proved to him that he was mad to keep lands which barely yielded him forty thousand francs a year, and which he could easily sell for two millions; which amount, invested merely at five per cent, would yield him an income of one hundred thousand francs.  He therefore sold every thing, except our patrimonial homestead on the road from Quimper to Audierne, and rushed into speculations.  He was rather lucky at first.  But he was too honest and too loyal to be lucky long.  An operation in which he became interested early in 1869 turned out badly.  His associates became rich; but he, I know not how, was ruined, and came near being compromised.  He died of grief a month later.”

The old soldier was nodding his assent.

“Very well, my boy,” he said.  “But you are too modest; and there’s a circumstance which you neglect.  You had a right, when your father became involved in these troubles, to claim and retain your mother’s fortune; that is, some thirty thousand francs a year.  Not only you did not do so; but you gave up every thing to his creditors.  You sold the domain of Tregars, except the old castle and its park, and paid over the proceeds to them; so that, if your father did die ruined, at least he did not owe a cent.  And yet you knew, as well as myself, that your father had been deceived and swindled by a lot of scoundrels who drive their carriages now, and who, perhaps, if the courts were applied to, might still be made to disgorge their ill-gotten plunder.”

Her head bent upon her tapestry, Mlle. Gilberte seemed to be working with incomparable zeal.  The truth is, she knew not how to conceal the blushes on her cheeks, and the trembling of her hands.  She had something like a cloud before her eyes; and she drove her needle at random.  She scarcely preserved enough presence of mind to reply to Mme. Favoral, who, not noticing any thing, spoke to her from time to time.

Indeed, the meaning of this scene was too clear to escape her.

“They have had an understanding,” she thought, “and it is for me alone that they are speaking.”

Meantime, Marius de Tregars was going on: 

“I should lie, my old friend, were I to say that I was indifferent to our ruin.  Philosopher though one may be, it is not without some pangs that one passes from a sumptuous hotel to a gloomy garret.  But what grieved me most of all was that I saw myself compelled to give up the labors which had been the joy of my life, and upon which I had founded the most magnificent hopes.  A positive vocation, stimulated further by the accidents of my education, had led me to the study of physical sciences.  For several years, I had applied all I have of intelligence and energy to certain investigations in electricity.  To convert electricity into an incomparable motive-power which would supersede steam,—such was the object I pursued without pause.  Already, as you know, although quite young, I had obtained results which had attracted some attention in the scientific world.  I thought I could see the last of a problem, the solution of which would change the face of the globe.  Ruin was the death of my hopes, the total loss of the fruits of my labors; for my experiments were costly, and it required money, much money, to purchase the products which were indispensable to me, and to construct the machines which I contrived.

“And I was about being compelled to earn my daily bread.

“I was on the verge of despair, when I met a man whom I had formerly seen at my father’s, and who had seemed to take some interest in my researches, a speculator named Marcolet.  But it is not at the bourse that he operates.  Industry is the field of his labors.  Ever on the lookout for those obstinate inventors who are starving to death in their garrets, he appears to them at the hour of supreme crisis:  he pities them, encourages them, consoles them, helps them, and almost always succeeds in becoming the owner of their discovery.  Sometimes he makes a mistake; and then all he has to do is to put a few thousand francs to the debit of profit or loss.  But, if he has judged right, then he counts his profits by hundreds of thousands; and how many patents does he work thus!  Of how many inventions does he reap the results which are a fortune, and the inventors of which have no shoes to wear!  Every thing is good to him; and he defends with the same avidity a cough-sirup, the formula of which he has purchased of some poor devil of a druggist, and an improvement to the steam-engine, the patent for which has been sold to him by an engineer of genius.  And yet Marcolet is not a bad man.  Seeing my situation, he offered me a certain yearly sum to undertake some studies of industrial chemistry which he indicated to me.  I accepted; and the very next day I hired a small basement in the Rue des Tournelles, where I set up my laboratory, and went to work at once.  That was a year ago.  Marcolet must be satisfied.  I have already found for him a new shade for dyeing silk, the cost price of which is almost nothing.  As to me, I have lived with the strictest economy, devoting all my surplus earnings to the prosecution of the problem, the solution of which would give me both glory and fortune.”

Palpitating with inexpressible emotion, Mlle. Gilberte was listening to this young man, unknown to her a few moments since, and whose whole history she now knew as well as if she had always lived near him; for it never occurred to her to suspect his sincerity.

No voice had ever vibrated to her ear like this voice, whose grave sonorousness stirred within her strange sensations, and legions of thoughts which she had never suspected.  She was surprised at the accent of simplicity with which he spoke of the illustriousness of his family, of his past opulence, of his obscure labors, and of his exalted hopes.

She admired the superb disregard for money which beamed forth in his every word.  Here was then one man, at least, who despised that money before which she had hitherto seen all the people she knew prostrated in