“My dear M. Debray,” said the banker, “do not kill yourself tonight listening to the follies of Madame Danglars, for you can hear them as well tomorrow; but I claim tonight and will devote it, if you will allow me, to talk over some serious matters with my wife.”
This time the blow was so well aimed, and hit so directly, that Lucien and the baroness were staggered, and they interrogated each other with their eyes, as if to seek help against this aggression, but the irresistible will of the master of the house prevailed, and the husband was victorious.
“Do not think I wish to turn you out, my dear Debray,” continued Danglars; “oh, no, not at all. An unexpected occurrence forces me to ask my wife to have a little conversation with me; it is so rarely I make such a request, I am sure you cannot grudge it to me.”
Debray muttered something, bowed and went out, knocking himself against the edge of the door, like Nathan in Athalie.
“It is extraordinary,” he said, when the door was closed behind him, “how easily these husbands, whom we ridicule, gain an advantage over us.”
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Lucien having left, Danglars took his place on the sofa, closed the open book, and placing himself in a dreadfully dictatorial attitude, he began playing with the dog; but the animal, not liking him as well as Debray, and attempting to bite him, Danglars seized him by the skin of his neck and threw him upon a couch on the other side of the room. The animal uttered a cry during the transit, but, arrived at its destination, it crouched behind the cushions, and stupefied at such unusual treatment remained silent and motionless.
“Do you know, sir,” asked the baroness, “that you are improving? Generally you are only rude, but tonight you are brutal.”
“It is because I am in a worse humor than usual,” replied Danglars. Hermine looked at the banker with supreme disdain. These glances frequently exasperated the pride of Danglars, but this evening he took no notice of them.
“And what have I to do with your ill-humor?” said the baroness, irritated at the impassibility of her husband; “do these things concern me? Keep your ill-humor at home in your money boxes, or, since you have clerks whom you pay, vent it upon them.”
“Not so,” replied Danglars; “your advice is wrong, so I shall not follow it. My money boxes are my Pactolus, as, I think, M. Demoustier says, and I will not retard its course, or disturb its calm. My clerks are honest men, who earn my fortune, whom I pay much below their deserts, if I may value them according to what they bring in; therefore I shall not get into a passion with them; those with whom I will be in a passion are those who eat my dinners, mount my horses, and exhaust my fortune.”
“And pray who are the persons who exhaust your fortune? Explain yourself more clearly, I beg, sir.”
“Oh, make yourself easy!—I am not speaking riddles, and you will soon know what I mean. The people who exhaust my fortune are those who draw out 700,000 francs in the course of an hour.”
“I do not understand you, sir,” said the baroness, trying to disguise the agitation of her voice and the flush of her face.
“You understand me perfectly, on the contrary,” said Danglars: “but, if you will persist, I will tell you that I have just lost 700,000 francs upon the Spanish loan.”
“And pray,” asked the baroness, “am I responsible for this loss?”
“Why not?”
“Is it my fault you have lost 700,000 francs?”
“Certainly it is not mine.”
“Once for all, sir,” replied the baroness sharply, “I tell you I will not hear cash named; it is a style of language I never heard in the house of my parents or in that of my first husband.”
“Oh, I can well believe that, for neither of them was worth a penny.”
“The better reason for my not being conversant with the slang of the bank, which is here dinning in my ears from morning to night; that noise of jingling crowns, which are constantly being counted and re-counted, is odious to me. I only know one thing I dislike more, which is the sound of your voice.”
“Really?” said Danglars. “Well, this surprises me, for I thought you took the liveliest interest in all my affairs!”
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“I? What could put such an idea into your head?”
“Yourself.”
“Ah?—what next?”
“Most assuredly.”
“I should like to know upon what occasion?”
“Oh, mon Dieu! that is very easily done. Last February you were the first who told me of the Haitian funds. You had dreamed that a ship had entered the harbor at Le Havre, that this ship brought news that a payment we had looked upon as lost was going to be made. I know how clear-sighted your dreams are; I therefore purchased immediately as many shares as I could of the Haitian debt, and I gained 400,000 francs by it, of which 100,000 have been honestly paid to you. You spent it as you pleased; that was your business. In March there was a question about a grant to a railway. Three companies presented themselves, each offering equal securities. You told me that your instinct,—and although you pretend to know nothing about speculations, I think on the contrary, that your comprehension is very clear upon certain affairs,—well, you told me that your instinct led you to believe the grant would be given to the company called the Southern. I bought two thirds of the shares of that company; as you had foreseen, the shares trebled in value, and I picked up a million, from which 250,000 francs were paid to you for pin-money. How have you spent this 250,000 francs?—it is no business of mine.”
“When are you coming to the point?” cried the baroness, shivering with anger and impatience.
“Patience, madame, I am coming to it.”
“That’s fortunate.”
“In April you went to dine at the minister’s. You heard a private conversation respecting Spanish affairs—on the expulsion of Don Carlos. I bought some Spanish shares. The expulsion took place and I pocketed 600,000 francs the day Charles V. repassed the Bidassoa. Of these 600,000 francs you took 50,000 crowns. They were yours, you disposed of them according to your fancy, and I asked no questions; but it is not the less true that you have this year received 500,000 livres.”
“Well, sir, and what then?”
“Ah, yes, it was just after this that you spoiled everything.”
“Really, your manner of speaking——”
“It expresses my meaning, and that is all I want. Well, three days after that you talked politics with M. Debray, and you fancied from his words that Don Carlos had returned to Spain. Well, I sold my shares, the news got out, and I no longer sold—I gave them away, next day I find the news was false, and by this false report I have lost 700,000 francs.”
“Well?”
“Well, since I gave you a fourth of my gains, I think you owe me a fourth of my losses; the fourth of 700,000 francs is 175,000 francs.”
