He looked at Pascal with evident distrust,
for he knew with what sweet excuses well-bred people envelope
their refusals. "So the baron is disconsolate," he remarked, in a
tone of perceptible irony.
"He is indeed!"
"Poor baron! Ah! I pity him--pity him deeply."
As cold and as unmoved as a statue, Pascal seemed quite
unconscious of the effect of the message he had brought--quite
unconscious of Valorsay's sufferings and self-constraint. "You
think I am jesting, monsieur," he said, quietly, "but I assure you
that the baron is very short of money just now."
"Nonsense! a man worth seven or eight millions of francs."
"I should say ten millions, at least."
"Then the excuse is all the more absurd."
Pascal shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "It astonishes me,
Monsieur le Marquis, to hear YOU speak in this way. It is not the
magnitude of a man's income that constitutes affluence, but rather
the way in which that income is spent. In this foolish age,
almost all rich people are in arrears. What income does the baron
derive from his ten millions of francs? Not more than five hundred
thousand. A very handsome fortune, no doubt, and I should be more
than content with it. But the baron gambles, and the baroness is
the most elegant--in other words, the most extravagant--woman in
Paris. They both of them love luxury, and their establishment is
kept up in princely style.
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