He looked about for a bell, and seeing none, he was reduced to the
dire necessity of opening the door himself, and calling some one.
Madame Dodelin answered the summons. "Monsieur said he would
return before midnight," she replied; "so he will certainly be
here. There is no one like him for punctuality. Won't monsieur
have patience a little longer?"
"Well, I will wait a few moments; but, my good woman, light the
fire; my feet are frozen!"
M. Fortunat's drawing-room being used but seldom, was really as
frigid as an iceberg; and to make matters still worse, M. de
Valorsay was in evening dress, with only a light overcoat. The
servant hesitated for an instant, thinking this visitor difficult
to please, and inclined to make himself very much at home, still
she obeyed.
"I think I ought to go," muttered the marquis. "I really think I
ought to go." And yet he remained. Necessity, it should be
remembered, effectually quiets the revolts of pride.
Left an orphan in his early childhood, placed in possession of an
immense fortune at the age of twenty-three, M. de Valorsay had
entered life like a famished man enters a dining-room. His name
entitled him to a high position in the social world; and he
installed himself at table without asking how much the banquet
might cost him. It cost him dear, as he discovered at the end of
the first year, on noting that his disbursements had considerably
exceeded his large income.
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