“Ta, ta, ta, ta,” said Mathias, “I do not do business as you would sing a ballad. What have you to show?”
“What on your side?” asked Solonet.
“We have to settle,” said Mathias, “the estate of Lanstrac, producing twenty-three thousand francs a year in rents, to say nothing of produce in kind: Item the farms of le Grassol and le Guadet, each let for three thousand six hundred francs. Item the vineyards of Bellerose, yielding on an average sixteen thousand—together forty-six thousand two hundred francs a year. Item a family mansion at Bordeaux, rated at nine hundred. Item a fine house in Paris, with a forecourt and garden, Rue de la Pépinière, rated at fifteen hundred. These properties, of which I hold the title-deeds, we inherit from our parents, excepting the house in Paris acquired by purchase. We have also to include the furniture of the two houses and of the château of Lanstrac, valued at four hundred and fifty thousand francs. There you have the table, the cloth, and the first course. Now what have you for the second course and the dessert?”
“Our rights and expectations,” said Solonet.
“Specify, my dear sir,” replied Mathias. “What have you to show? Where is the valuation made at Monsieur Evangelista’s death? Show me your valuations, and the investments you hold. Where is your capital—if you have any? Where is your land—if you have land! Show me your guardian’s accounts, and tell us what your mother gives or promises to give you.”
“Is Monsieur le Comte de Manerville in love with Mademoiselle Evangelista?”
“He means to marry her if everything proves suitable,” said the old notary. “I am not a child; this is a matter of business and not of sentiment.”
“The business will fall through if you have no sentiment—and generous sentiment; and this is why,” said Solonet. “We had no valuation made after our husband’s death. Spanish, and a Creole, we knew nothing of French law. And we were too deeply grieved, to think of the petty formalities which absorb colder hearts. It is a matter of public notoriety that the deceased gentleman adored his wife, and that we were plunged in woe. Though we had a probate and a kind of valuation on a general estimate, you may thank the surrogate guardian for that, who called upon us to make a statement and settle a sum on our daughter as best we might just at a time when we were obliged to sell out of the English funds to an enormous amount which we wished to reinvest in Paris at double the interest.”
“Come, do not talk nonsense to me. There are means of checking these amounts. How much did you pay in succession duties? The figure will be enough to verify the amounts. Go to the facts. Tell us plainly how much you had, and what is left. And then, if we are too desperately in love, we shall see.”
“Well, if you are marrying for money, you may make your bow at once. We may lay claim to more than a million francs; but our mother has nothing of it left but this house and furniture and four hundred odd thousand francs, invested in 1817 in five percents, and bringing in forty thousand francs a year.”
“How then do you keep up a style costing a hundred thousand?” cried Mathias in dismay.
“Our daughter has cost us vast sums. Besides, we like display. And, finally, all your jeremiads will not bring back two sous of it.”
“Mademoiselle Natalie might have been very handsomely brought up on the fifty thousand francs a year that belonged to her without rushing into ruin. And if you ate with such an appetite as a girl, what will you not devour as a wife?”
“Let us go then,” said Solonet. “The handsomest girl alive is bound to spend more than she has.”
“I will go and speak two words to my client,” said the older lawyer.
“Go, go,” thought Maître Solonet, “go, old Father Cassandra, and tell your client we have not a farthing.” For in the silence of his private office he had strategically disposed of his masses, formed his arguments in columns, fixed the turning-points of the discussion, and prepared the critical moment when the antagonistic parties, thinking all was lost, would jump at a compromise which would be the triumph of his client.
The flowing dress with pink ribbons, the ringlets à la Sévigné, Natalie’s small foot, her insinuating looks, her slender hand, constantly engaged in rearranging the curls which did not need it—all the tricks of a girl showing off, as a peacock spreads its tail in the sun—had brought Paul to the point at which her mother wished to see him. He was crazy with admiration, as crazy as a schoolboy for a courtesan; his looks, an unfailing thermometer of the mind, marked the frenzy of passion which leads a man to commit a thousand follies.
“Natalie is so beautiful,” he whispered to Madame Evangelista, “that I can understand the madness which drives us to pay for pleasure by death.”
The lady tossed her head.
“A lover’s words!” she replied. “My husband never made me such fine speeches; but he married me penniless, and never in thirteen years gave me an instant’s pain.”
“Is that a hint for me?” said Paul, smiling.
“You know how truly I care for you, dear boy,” said she, pressing his hand. “Besides, do you not think I must love you well to be willing to give you my Natalie?”
“To give
