are quite well, I hope? And weren't you supposed to get married at Plassans, about six months ago?"
A sudden movement made by Vallagnosc stopped him, and as his friend had glanced into the larger drawing-room with an anxious expression, he also turned round, and noticed that Mademoiselle de Boves was closely watching them. Blanche, tall and sturdy, resembled her mother; but her face was already puffed out and her features seemed large – swollen, as it were, by unhealthy fat. Then, in reply to a discreet question, Paul intimated that nothing was yet settled; perhaps nothing would be settled. He had made the young person's acquaintance at Madame Desforges's, where he had visited a good deal the previous winter, but whither he now very rarely came, which explained why he had not met Octave there before. In their turn, the Boves invited him, and he was especially fond of the father, an ex-man about town who had retired into an official position. On the other hand there was no money, Madame de Boves having brought her husband nothing but her Juno-like beauty as a marriage portion. So the family were living poorly on their last mortgaged farm, to the little money derived from which were fortunately added the nine thousand francs a year drawn by the count as Inspector-General of the State Studs. Certain escapades, however, continued to empty his purse; and the ladies, mother and daughter, were kept very short of money, being at times reduced to turning their dresses themselves.
"In that case, why marry?" was Mouret's simple question.
"Well! I can't go on like this for ever," said Vallagnosc, with a weary movement of the eyelids. "Besides, there are certain expectations, we are waiting for the death of an aunt."
However, Mouret still kept his eye on Monsieur de Boves, who, seated next to Madame Guibal, proved most attentive to her, laughing softly the while, with an amorous air. Thereupon Octave turned to his friend with such a significant twinkle of the eye that the latter added:
"Not that one – at least not yet. The misfortune is, that his duties call him to the four corners of France, to the breeding dépôts, so that he has frequent pretexts for absenting himself. Last month, whilst his wife supposed him to be at Perpignan, he was simply carrying on in Paris, in an out-of-the-way neighbourhood."
There ensued a pause. Then the young man, who was also watching the count's gallantry towards Madame Guibal, resumed in a low tone: "Really, I think you are right. The more so as the dear lady is not exactly a saint, if all people say be true. But just look at him! Isn't he comical, trying to magnetize her with his eyes? The old-fashioned gallantry, my dear fellow! I adore that man, and if I marry his daughter, he may safely say it's for his sake!"
Mouret laughed, greatly amused. He questioned Vallagnosc again, and when he found that the first idea of a marriage between him and Blanche had come from Madame Desforges, he thought the story better still. That dear Henriette took a widow's delight in marrying people, so much so, that when she had provided for the girls, she sometimes allowed their fathers to choose friends from her company.
At that moment she appeared at the door of the little drawing-room, followed by a gentleman apparently about sixty years old, whose arrival had not been observed by the two friends, absorbed as they were in the conversation they were carrying on, to the accompaniment of the ladies' voices. These voices at times rang out in a shriller key above the tinkling of the small spoons in the china cups; and from time to time, during a brief silence you heard a saucer being harshly laid down on the marble table. A sudden gleam of the setting sun, which had just emerged from behind a thick cloud, gilded the crests of the chestnut-trees in the gardens, and streamed through the windows in a red, golden flame, whose glow lighted up the brocatel and brass-work of the furniture.
"This way, my dear baron," said Madame Desforges. "Allow me to introduce to you Monsieur Octave Mouret, who is longing to express the admiration he feels for you." And turning round towards Octave, she added: "Baron Hartmann."
A smile played on the old man's lips. He was short, and vigorous, with a large Alsatian head, and a heavy face, which lighted up with a gleam of intelligence at the slightest curl of his mouth, the slightest movement of his eyelids. For the last fortnight he had resisted Henriette's wish that he should consent to this interview; not that he felt any immoderate jealousy of Mouret, but because this was the third friend Henriette had introduced to him, and he was afraid of becoming ridiculous at last. And so on approaching Octave he put on the discreet smile of one who, albeit willing to behave amiably, is not disposed to be a dupe.
"Oh! sir," said Mouret, with his Provençal enthusiasm, "the Crédit Immobilier's last operation was really astonishing! You cannot think how happy and proud I am to know you."
"Too kind, sir, too kind," repeated the baron, still smiling.
Henriette, robed in a lace dress, which revealed her delicate neck and wrists, looked at them with her clear eyes without any sign of embarrassment; standing between the two, raising her head, and going from one to the other she indeed appeared delighted to see them so friendly together.
"Gentlemen," said she at last, "I leave you to your conversation." And, turning towards Paul, who had risen from the sofa, she resumed: "Will you accept a cup of tea, Monsieur de Vallagnosc?"
"With pleasure, madame," he replied, and they both returned to the larger drawing-room.
Mouret resumed his seat on the sofa, when Baron Hartmann likewise had sat down on it; and forthwith the young man broke into renewed praise of the Crédit Immobilier's operations. From that he went on to the subject so near his heart, speaking of the new thoroughfare, a lengthening of the Rue Réaumur, a section of which running from the Place de la Bourse to the Place de l'Opéra was about to be opened under the name of the Rue du Dix-Décembre. It had been declared a work of public utility eighteen months previously; the expropriation jury had just been appointed; and the whole neighbourhood was excited about this new street, anxiously awaiting the commencement of the works, and taking a keen interest in the houses condemned to disappear. For three years Mouret had been waiting for this work – first, in the expectation of an increase of his own business; secondly, for the furtherance of certain schemes of enlargement which he dared not openly avow, so extensive were his ideas. As the Rue du Dix-Décembre was to cut through the Rue de Choiseul and the Rue de la Michodière, he pictured The Ladies' Paradise occupying the whole block of building which these streets and the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin surrounded; and he already imagined it with a princely frontage in the new thoroughfare, dominating everything around like some lord and master of the conquered city. Hence his strong desire to make Baron Hartmann's acquaintance, as soon as he had learnt that the Crédit Immobilier had contracted with the authorities to open and build this Rue du Dix-Décembre, on condition that it should receive the frontage ground on each side of the street.
"Really," he repeated, trying to assume a naive look, "you'll hand over the street ready made, with sewers, pavements, and gas lamps. And the frontage ground will suffice to compensate you. Oh! it's curious, very curious!"
At last he came to the delicate point. He was aware that the Crédit Immobilier was secretly buying up the houses forming part of the same block as The Ladies' Paradise, not only those which were to fall under the demolishers' pickaxes, but the others as well, those which were to remain standing; and he suspected the existence of a project for founding some great establishment, which made him anxious about those enlargements of his own premises of which he was ever dreaming, seized with fear at the idea that he might one day come into collision with a powerful company owning property which they certainly would not sell. It was precisely this fear which had prompted him to seek an alliance between himself and the Baron under Henriette's auspices. No doubt he could have seen the financier at his office, and have there talked the affair over at his ease; but he felt that he would be stronger in Henriette's house. To be near her, within the beloved perfume of her presence, to have her ready to convince them both with a smile, seemed to him a certain guarantee of success.
"Haven't you bought the former Hôtel Duvillard, that old building next to my place?" he suddenly inquired.
The baron hesitated for a moment, and then denied it. But Mouret looked him straight in the face and smiled, from that moment beginning to play the part of an open-hearted young man who was always straightforward in business.
"Look here, Monsieur le Baron," said he, "as I have the unexpected honour of meeting you, I must make a confession. Oh, I don't ask