Glorying in magnificent plate, the leading lady of the Gaîté gave handsome dinners, spent three hundred francs a month on dress, never went out but in a private fly, and kept a maid, a cook, and a page. What she aimed at indeed was a command to dance at the opera. The Cocon d’Or laid its handsomest products at the feet of its former master to please Mademoiselle Cabirolle, known as Florentine, just as, three years since, it had gratified every wish of Coralie’s; but still without the knowledge of uncle Cardot’s daughter, for the father and his son-in-law had always agreed that decorum must be respected at home. Madame Camusot knew nothing of her husband’s extravagance or her father’s habits.
Now, after being the master for seven years, Cardot felt himself in tow of a pilot whose power of caprice was unlimited. But the unhappy old fellow was in love. Florentine alone must close his eyes, and he meant to leave her a hundred thousand francs. The age of iron had begun.
Georges Marest, handsome, young, and rich, with thirty thousand francs a year, was paying court to Florentine. Every dancer is by way of loving somebody as her protector loves her, and having a young man to escort her out walking or driving, and arrange excursions into the country. And, however disinterested, the affections of a leading lady are always a luxury, costing the happy object of her choice some little trifle. Dinners at the best restaurants, boxes at the play, carriages for driving in the environs of Paris, and choice wines lavishly consumed—for ballet-dancers live now like the athletes of antiquity.
Georges, in short, amused himself as young men do who suddenly find themselves independent of paternal discipline; and his uncle’s death, almost doubling his income, enlarged his ideas. So long as he had but the eighteen thousand francs a year left him by his parents he intended to be a notary; but, as his cousin remarked to Desroches’ clerks, a man would be a noodle to start in a profession with as much money as others have when they give it up. So the retiring law-clerk was celebrating his first day of freedom by this breakfast, which was also to pay his cousin’s footing.
Frédéric, more prudent than Georges, persisted in his legal career.
As a fine young fellow like Georges might very well marry a rich Creole, and the Marquis de las Florentinas y Cabirolos might very well in the decline of life—as Frédéric hinted to his new companions—have preferred to marry for beauty rather than for noble birth, the clerks of Desroches’ office—all belonging to impecunious families, and having no acquaintance with the fashionable world—got themselves up in their Sunday clothes, all impatience to see the Mexican Marquesa de las Florentinas y Cabirolos.
“What good luck,” said Oscar to Godeschal as he dressed in the morning, “that I should have just ordered a new coat, waistcoat, and trousers, and a pair of boots, and that my precious mother should have given me a new outfit on my promotion to be second clerk. I have six fine shirts with frills out of the dozen she gave me. We will make a good show! Oh! if only one of us could carry off the Marquise from that Georges Marest!”
“A pretty thing for a clerk in Maître Desroches’ office!” cried Godeschal. “Will you never be cured of your vanity—brat!”
“Oh, monsieur,” said Madame Clapart, who had just come in to bring her son some ties, and heard the managing clerk’s remarks, “would to God that Oscar would follow your good advice! It is what I am always saying to him, ‘Imitate Monsieur Godeschal, take his advice,’ is what I say.”
“He is getting on, madame,” said Godeschal, “but he must not often be so clumsy as he was yesterday, or he will lose his place in the master’s good graces. Maître Desroches cannot stand a man who is beaten. He sent your son on his first errand yesterday, to fetch away the copy of the judgment delivered in a will case, which two brothers, men of high rank, are fighting against each other, and Oscar allowed himself to be circumvented. The master was furious. It was all I could do to set things straight by going at six this morning to find the copying-clerk, and I made him promise to let me have the judgment in black and white by seven tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, Godeschal,” cried Oscar, going up to his superior and grasping his hand, “you are a true friend!”
“Yes, monsieur,” said Madame Clapart, “it is a happy thing for a mother to feel that her son has such a friend as you, and you may believe that my gratitude will end only with my life. Oscar, beware of this Georges Marest; he has already been the cause of your first misfortune in life.”
“How was that?” asked Godeschal.
The too-confiding mother briefly told the head-clerk the story of poor Oscar’s adventure in Pierrotin’s chaise.
“And I am certain,” added Godeschal, “that the humbug has planned some trick on us this evening. I shall not go to the Marquise de las Florentinas. My sister needs my help in drawing up a fresh engagement, so I shall leave you at dessert. But be on your guard, Oscar. Perhaps they will make you gamble, and Desroches’ office must not make a poor mouth. Here, you can stake for us both; here are a hundred francs,” said the kind fellow, giving the money to Oscar, whose purse had been drained by the tailor and bootmaker. “Be careful; do not dream of playing beyond the
